Cradle
by Mellia Bee
Summary: Hand in hand, Steve and Peggy face their future, but Hydra still poses a threat, and Tony is building something in his workshop - and married life in the Avengers Tower has its own set of joys and challenges. Sequel to 'Sarcophagus.' No slash, no smut.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

An honestly ridiculous amount of eggs sizzled cheerfully in the pan, filling the kitchen with the delectable smell of breakfast as Peggy Carter Rogers turned the page of her newspaper With her free hand, she flipped the rashers of bacon absently, far more focused on reading between the lines of the world news.

Astonishing what reporters could get wrong, these days.

"Peg-o-my-heart," Steve Rogers hummed softly into her ear, arms sliding warm around her waist. Startled out of her absorption, Peggy jumped and dropped the spatula, making him chuckle at her surprise. Smiling, she settled back into his hold, feeling his strong heartbeat against her spine. For such a big man, he could move incredibly quietly when he needed to.

"Smells good," he told her, kissing her cheek and then leaning them both forward so he could get a better look over her shoulder at their breakfast. "Ham and eggs? Must be a holiday."

Peggy slapped the hand that was sneaking toward the spatula. "It's proper bacon, you Philistine, not ham, and I'm determined not to burn it this time. Set the table, will you?"

Thwarted in his attempt to sneak a taste, Steve laid his face against her hair before pulling away and going to the cupboard. Peggy turned, letting the newspaper drop, and watched as he pulled the silverware out of the drawer.

It was all still so incredible to her, even after months of marriage. Steve Rogers was alive and married to her, and setting the table for breakfast. It was all very wonderful, everything she had dreamed of and more, and suddenly the sheer joy was almost too much to bear.

Breakfast could fend for itself for a few minutes.

Setting down her the spatula with finality, Peggy crossed the kitchen in three steps, catching the front of his shirt as he turned. Taken by surprise, he ran into the refrigerator and nearly dropped the silverware, but in the end she got her kiss quite satisfactorily. His free arm closed around her waist when she tried to beat a retreat, and he grinned a little dopily down into her face.

"Good morning to you too," he told her, sounding slightly out of breath, and she laughed up into his face. He seemed in no hurry to let her go, pulling her in for another kiss, soft and lingering.

"The eggs will burn," she finally warned, making no move to pull away.

Steve shook his head, face very close to hers, voice sinking to a rumble that she could feel in her bones. "I like burnt eggs," he told her very seriously, trying not to smile.

Peggy pursed her lips. Any other day she would be more than happy to let breakfast sit, but having eggs at all still felt like a luxury to her, and she wasn't about to let them go to waste. Mind made up, she quirked her eyebrows dangerously and pulled out the best weapon in her arsenal.

Steve did drop the silverware then, yelping at the sudden attack she launched on his ribs. The man was incredibly ticklish. He tried to twist away, laughing helplessly, and she followed, continuing her relentless onslaught with a wicked gleam in her eye.

"Wow, this is better than a movie."

Steve stopped so suddenly that she ran into him, and they both tried to gather up the shreds of their dignity. Tony Stark stood in the doorway, arms folded, watching the show with a sort of triumphant look on his face. Peggy felt herself flush a little as she reached to straighten her husband's shirt, pulled askew by her tickling.

Trust Stark to catch them romping around the kitchen like a couple of schoolchildren. Sometimes living in this tower had its drawbacks.

"Stark," gasped Steve, trying to steady his breathing. "Ah - you joining us for breakfast?"

Tony ignored the question. "Are you ticklish? Captain America is ticklish. _Saturday Night Live_ is never going to believe this."

"Then it's a good job they're not going to find out, isn't it?" asked Peggy pointedly, stepping around the table and fixing him with a stern glare. Tony visibly reconsidered. Peggy and Pepper and Natasha had formed a very close three-way friendship, and if he bothered one of them, it was a sure bet the others would make him pay.

"Of course not." He wisely decided to play it safe, strolling across the room to look in the pan. Peggy rapped his knuckles sharply when he reached for a piece of bacon, and he withdrew with an injured air before finally getting down to the business at hand.

"Came by to give you this," he admitted, tossing a flash drive in his hand. Peggy snatched it out of the air, slipping it into her pocket as she listened to Tony prattle on. "It's everything JARVIS pulled off the servers from the last Hydra base we raided."

Steve nodded gravely. He and Peggy had a date in the afternoon, but they would go over the information later and update the team all at once if there was anything new to be gained from it.

Having delivered his data, Tony promptly took himself off, airily turning down Steve's renewed offer of breakfast and claiming a science thing with Bruce. He winked saucily as he left. "Have fun, kids."

Steve turned to his wife with a warm twinkle in his eye. Peggy refused to blush, on principle.

"You're terrible," she told him - and then Tony stuck his head back through the door.

"By the way," he said, "Is something burning in here? I think something's burning in here."

Peggy groaned and flew to save the eggs.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Should I pop popcorn?"

Bruce Banner looked up from his experiment. "I'm sorry?" he asked, a little confused.

"I should pop popcorn," Tony Stark decided, bouncing across the room. "It would be a _crime_ to not have popcorn right now."

"What are you talking about?" asked Bruce in confusion, taking off his glasses and stepping around the end of the table. For answer, Tony spun around, gesturing expansively toward the large glass windows on one wall of the lab.

"Look at this!" he declared dramatically, and Bruce made a mental note to check Tony's sugar intake. "We're in the middle of one of those mushy cuddly movies that Pepper likes, and we don't have any popcorn."

Following Stark's eyes, Bruce finally realized what he was talking about. Steve and Peggy were visible through the glass, apparently getting ready to leave the tower after the morning's work. They were always very professional in front of the others, but anybody could see how they stood closer together than absolutely necessary, brushing each other's fingers, smiling suddenly for no reason at all.

Steve was incredibly happy these days - happier than any of them had ever seen him, and the proud, sweet look in Peggy's eyes when she glanced up at her husband was so intimate that Bruce cleared his throat and looked away, nodding quietly. At least one Avenger got to be in a stable, loving marriage. Steve deserved all the happiness he could get.

Behind him, Stark kept talking. "I mean, guy likes girl, guy loses girl, guy gets girl back with the help of his amazingly brilliant and talented friends, guy and girl get married - it's like one of those movies. We need popcorn."

"Exactly which friends are you talking about?" asked Bruce dryly. Tony ignored him with the ease of long practice, still studying the couple on the other side of the glass. Picking up a pencil, he held it out at arm's length and squinted past it as though he was a painter getting perspective on his subject.

"They're doing it wrong," he suddenly announced, dropping the pencil with a clatter. He was unusually tightly strung today, and Bruce regarded him thoughtfully before taking a second look at the couple outside. They looked fine to him. "Doing what wrong?"

"Marriage," Tony answered shortly, rubbing his chest. "They're doing marriage wrong. Now that they're married, they should be fighting about the color of their drapes or something. Why aren't they arguing?"

Well if that didn't say something about Tony's parents, Bruce would eat his slide rule. "Tony…"

"I don't even remember what color their drapes are," Tony interrupted. "Do they actually have drapes? JARVIS, does Cap have drapes?"

Bruce tried again. "Tony, that's - "

"Captain Rogers currently has blinds installed," the voice of the AI announced imperturbably, as though the interior design preferences of the tower's inhabitants was not an unusual topic.

"Blinds." Stark threw his hands up despairingly. "See, somebody needs to educate them about the way these things work. They're still all gooey-eyed over each other, and they've been married for how long?"

Bruce frowned, taking his friend in. Tony had been erratic all day, fidgeting in and out of the lab, and more than once sending things crashing to the floor. Now, rubbing his chest absently, he was scowling into thin air, apparently thinking hard.

"Tony," Bruce started cautiously, "they don't have to argue in public to be healthy. Actually, they're probably the happiest married couple I've ever seen."

It was the truth. His own childhood had been damaged by dysfunctional parents, and he had never quite been convinced that happy marriages were actually real. At least, not until Steve Rogers had claimed Peggy Carter as his bride, and they had made their home in the tower.

Through the window, Peggy turned to get her hat, and Steve followed her with his eyes, grinning bashfully when she turned around and caught him at it. Laughing, she said something, and he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"What if you argue _and_ make out?"

It took Bruce a minute to realize that Tony was talking about his own relationship with Pepper. Suddenly the man's concerns made a lot more sense. If there was one thing Iron Man was afraid of, it was vulnerability, and Pepper Potts was a very tender spot for him. Uncomfortable, Bruce took refuge behind the computer screen again, perching his glasses back on his nose. "Not that kind of doctor, Tony."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The sky was bright and blue, with just a handful of puffy, white clouds sprinkled across it, and the weather was surprisingly warm for autumn. Steve Rogers stretched his legs as he stepped over a row of seats and settled down next to his wife. "Hot dog?" he asked, and Peggy poked at the rustling paper in his hands, selecting the one without ketchup. She preferred mustard - American ketchup just didn't taste right to her.

The stands weren't full - this was very late in the year for a baseball game, and it wasn't a major league. Still, it was baseball, and that fact alone was enough to make Steve gleefully break out his cap and sunglasses. His wife wore sunglasses too, but she'd drawn the line at a baseball cap, opting instead for something wide-brimmed and fetching that made him want to kiss her every time she put it on.

Peggy leaned up against his elbow, and he shifted to put his arm around her, tucking her up against his side as she unwrapped her food. She had been sensitive to cold ever since being thawed out, and could get quite chilly even on a warm day.

"Player eighteen," she pointed out, taking a bite and gesturing with her chin. "That's Mildred's grandson."

Interested, Steve followed her gaze to where the young man stood, swinging two or three baseball bats to limber up his muscles. They didn't know him personally, but his grandparents were in the weekly veterans lunch group that Sam Wilson had talked them into joining.

Ostensibly they were here to see their friends' grandson. In actual fact, they were there because Steve hadn't been to a baseball game in an age, and this gave him an excuse to ask his wife on a date. The last time he'd bought tickets for a game, the discovery of a small Hydra cell in the basement of the Denver mint had forced them to miss all but the very end of the last inning.

"So, where is the wicket?" Thor asked, biting into his own hot dog, and squinting at the field. Dressed in a plaid shirt and an obligatory baseball cap, with his long hair pulled back, he looked more like a giant lumberjack than anything else. Stark was probably going to call him 'Paul Bunyan' for a week.

Initially confused, Steve turned a suspicious look on his wife and caught the barest hint of a smug smile before she looked innocently up into his face. He knew that look - she had used it on everybody from Colonel Phillips to Director Fury, and it usually worked. They knew each other far too well, though.

"Peggy?" he asked, and she blinked solemnly over the tops of her red-rimmed sunglasses.

"I haven't the least idea where he picked that up," she informed him, voice dripping with false sincerity, and then took a long, deliberate drink, teasing him with her eyes.

"Cricket has wickets," Steve tried to explain to a confused Thor. "It's a different game, a British game. Baseball has bases." He had invited Thor to come along, hoping to get the big alien interested in the game. It would be nice to have somebody to play catch with - someone who wouldn't get killed if he forgot and threw the ball too hard.

The man on home plate swung the bat experimentally and then sank into the traditional batter's pose, waiting for the pitcher. Thor watched with interest.

"They have a unique stance before hitting the ball. Is it tradition?"

Steve didn't answer for a moment, watching closely as the pitcher wound up. The ball whizzed past the batter, slamming into the catcher's glove.

"Kinda," he finally answered, distracted by the game. "Lets the batter get a better angle on the ball."

The batter swung wildly at the second ball, and Steve shook his head in disgust. Thor took another bite. "He needs more practice," the alien prince decided, "and perhaps a better club. What is that one made of?"

Steve promptly launched into a very involved explanation of wooden and metal bats, as well as the respective pros and cons of each. Thor nodded attentively.

"Metal is better," he decided. He had left Mjolnir at the Tower, but was beginning to have serious second thoughts. This game looked to be good fun, but he wished he could go down and show them how a ball ought to be hit.

Peggy tipped her head back against Steve's shoulder, watching his face fondly as he earnestly argued the finer points of baseball. "Well, it depends. It's all in the swing, see. Babe Ruth used a wooden bat."

"Babe Ruth played for the Yankees," Peggy reminded him slyly. Steve had always been a baseball fan. She distinctly remembered him organizing a game during the war. The team had been made up of a mixture of French, English and American troops, with a handful of German POWs to even out the sides. There had been an incredible language barrier, and a ferocious argument over whether cricket or baseball pitching rules should be followed. The whole effort had ended when Steve accidentally hit the ball out of sight, and one of the POWs had unwisely tried to escape.

Steve tightened his arm around her. "Don't rub it in," he joked ruefully. Growing up in Brooklyn, he had hated the Yankees as a matter of principle. Then he raised his eyebrows. "I didn't realize you followed baseball."

"Well, someone very important to me happened to like it," Peggy commented airily, neatly crumpling her empty hot dog wrapper into a little ball. "I'm more of a cricket fan myself."

"You're so British," Steve chuckled, and she pursed her lips, trying not to smile back at the wonderful warm look in his eyes. "Really? You only just now noticed?"

He kissed her then, a little bolder in public now than he had been in the early days of their marriage, pulling down the brim of her sun hat to hide their faces from intruding eyes and trusting to the anonymity hats and sunglasses provided. Peggy dropped her empty wrapper to lace her fingers around the front of his jacket and pull him closer. Their happiness was still so new, so sweet that they couldn't help but treasure every moment together.

Thor beamed and looked away, back at the game. The two little children in the row ahead stared up at him with wide eyes over the backs of their seats, and he nodded cheerfully.

Naturally, that was when Steve's phone started to buzz.

"Cap?" It was Natasha. "We've got a tip on some gun-runners in Chicago with Hydra connections. Extraction in five minutes; get to a clear area."

"I don't suppose you could wait until the next inning?" Steve asked regretfully, but he was already checking the ground around their seats for anything they might have dropped as Peggy collected their empty wrappers. "My team's up to bat."

"Funny, Rogers." Natasha's voice was dry. "We've got your uniform in the quinjet. Five minutes."

Out on the field, Mildred's grandson hit a home run. Steve cheered the loudest, retreating backwards up the stairs after the others, watching the game for as long as he could.

 _Maybe one of these days_ , he thought as he folded Peggy's hand inside his and kept pace with Thor from the stadium to the nearest open area for extraction, _I'll manage to stay for a whole game_.

It seemed unlikely.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Note: Peggy is cooking British-style bacon, which looks very different from American bacon - or Canadian bacon, for that matter. To the uninitiated, British bacon can be confused for ham, which is what Steve does.**

 **Hello, lovely people! Bet you all thought this story was a myth, didn't you? To be honest, I'm more terrified to start posting this than anything else I've ever posted, lest it not measure up to your expectations.**

 **I do have a good excuse, though. This story stretched me more than I'd realized it would, and I've spent the last eight months doing research for it. Seriously, I have an honest-to-goodness** _ **bibliography**_ **for this thing. It got to the point my friends thought I was studying for my thesis. And the funny thing is none of you will even notice any of it, because it's all background stuff.**

 **What you will find in this story: 30+ chapters of Steve and Peggy, the Avengers, happy life events, sad life events, a fair bit of cuddling, and the events of** _ **Age of Ultron**_ **(though that's not the primary focus). I don't own the rights to anything except the stuff you don't recognize.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Chicago was a fiasco.

In retrospect, they should have realized much earlier that the tip was actually a trap. The base was deserted, and rigged computer banks exploded as soon as Stark tried to extract any information. Thrown backwards, stunned, he had struggled to get up again, looking for all the world like a giant red-and-gold beetle until Thor hooked a mighty hand under each arm and hauled him to his feet.

"You okay?" Steve asked, stepping forward, concerned.

The movement saved his life. There was no pop of breaking glass or crack of gunfire. All the windows in the room had been blown out in the explosion, and no doubt the gun had a silencer. The only sound was Steve's pained grunt as he went to his knees.

Peggy was at his side in a heartbeat, forcing him below the level of the windowsill as he tried to stand again.

"Don't move," she ordered crisply, the undertone of worry plain in her voice. She had never enjoyed seeing his blood on her hands.

"Peggy," he protested, trying to get up, but she dug her fingers into his uniform, working to simultaneously hold him down and apply pressure to his wound. "They're fine," she promised breathlessly, "they've got this. Just stay down until I can tell how bad this is."

The other Avengers had leaped into motion as soon as their captain's knees hit the floor. Clint had three arrows speeding on their way before Thor tore past him, shattering what was left of the window. Stark, on the other hand, paused. "You need evac?" he asked, but Steve shook his head firmly.

"I'm okay," he panted. "Back Thor up - keep an eye - out for an ambush."

Stark nodded and then was gone. Natasha's hand flew to her ear, and Peggy could hear her over the shared comm system. "Bruce, bring the quinjet down and get in here with a couple of those compression bandages. Cap's been hit."

Reluctantly, the captain settled under his wife's hands, face drawn with pain and concentration, completely focused on his team. Peggy struggled to get out of her leather jacket and pressed the lining down against his back with all her strength, trying to stop the bleeding. The bullet should have killed him - would have, if it hadn't been for his unexpected movement and the near-armor strength of the StarkFiber his suit was made of.

Clint crouched beside the blown-out window, another arrow ready to let fly at the first sign of an attack. He winced at the dragging sound of metal against cement on the roof a few minutes later. "I hate it when he lands," he muttered crossly. Clint had tried over and over to teach Bruce to land the quinjet, but despite it being almost fully automated, with state-of-the-art sensors, Bruce still managed to scratch it. Every time. Even Peggy had learned to land it better than he could.

Then Stark's voice crackled over the connection. "Um, guys?" He sounded oddly grave. "We've got civilians."

Steve didn't wait for the bandage, twisting out from under Peggy's hands and bolting for the door. "Steve!" she called after him with exasperation, and then ran after him, gun in hand, Natasha at her heels.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The trouble with being an Avenger was that they had fans. The trouble with having fans was that sometimes, in dangerous situations, these people would be more likely to stand obliviously in the middle of danger, staring in delight at their favorite Avenger as if the whole thing was some kind of three-dimensional action movie.

For this reason, Peggy was better than the rest of the team at getting civilians under cover.

"Federal agent," she announced, flashing what looked like a badge and keeping her tone brisk and efficient as she pushed through the gathering crowds that jammed the sidewalks. "Step inside the buildings, away from the windows. This is not a drill. For your safety, step inside."

Even wounded, Steve had quickly out-run her, vanishing somewhere ahead of her. Fully aware that the fight could come their direction at any moment, Peggy scanned her surroundings, gun at the ready as people reluctantly began trickling indoors.

The suddenly widened eyes of the bystanders around her was her only warning.

Peggy managed a half turn before a massive shove sent her flying to the side, Steve's body sprawling over hers as a shot whistled over their heads. Civilians screamed and finally scattered, the danger touching a little too close to home. Peggy reached for her husband's gun - hers had been knocked out of her hand as they hit the ground - and fired over his shoulder at the shadowy figure on the roof.

The sniper had found them.

Steve rolled off of her, and she scooted sideways toward the shelter of a parked car before realizing he wasn't behind her. Whirling, she saw him kneeling over a young man - a civilian. Apparently the shot meant for them had hit somebody else.

Thor was charging for the building with a shout, hand outstretched to summon his hammer, but it would take him precious seconds. The sniper rose to his knees and aimed again, straight at the back of Steve's head.

Peggy saw red. Popping up from behind the car, she braced her hand on the edge of the windshield and got off three more shots in rapid succession, driving the sniper away from the edge of the roof before he could take the shot. Then Thor left the ground as Mjölnir slapped into his palm, and she knew her part of the fight was over. He could fly, which made pursuing rooftop snipers infinitely easier.

"Hey, Peg? Could use a hand." Steve's voice was short - she'd heard it a thousand times in urgent situations. Sliding his gun into her waistband, she hurried over, retrieving her own weapon on the way.

The captain was on his knees, hands clamped tightly around the young man's thigh. "Look at me, son," he was saying, voice warm and steady, betraying none of the pain he himself was in. "Keep your eyes on me, that's it. Everything's going to be fine." The young man was shuddering, fear and agony and shock taking over, but he hung onto Steve's reassuring words like a lifeline.

Peggy took one look and collared the first person in reach. "Call an ambulance," she ordered briefly, and then crouched behind her husband, sliding her hands around his waist to unbuckle his belt. The spread of blood down his back made her heart clench, but she pushed aside the emotion in favor of efficiency. Moving to his side, she helped cinch the belt tightly around the fallen man's leg above the gunshot wound, scanning the rooftops the whole time. Just because one sniper was out of the picture didn't mean there wasn't another one lurking somewhere.

The immediate scare over, curious people began to gather. "Hey, isn't that Captain America?" somebody called, and suddenly everyone had a cell phone or camera pointed in their direction. Steve bowed his head a little further, trying to ignore the attention and keep the wounded man calm, but Peggy jerked to her feet. The area wasn't safe, there was a distinct possibility of another sniper lurking nearby, and Steve deserved his privacy.

The civilians would simply have to go.

"Agent Carter, SSR," she snapped and flashed her wallet at the crowd, smacking down the nearest camera that pointed in her direction. It was only half true - she had changed her name with marriage, and the SSR didn't technically exist anymore, but it made for a nice cover. Besides, there was power in invoking obscure acronyms. Living in post-New-Deal America had taught her that much. "This location is unsafe. Clear the area. No pictures."

It had been the first thing Peggy learned in the army. An air of authority and a firm voice could work wonders, especially when paired with a right hook. Nobody questioned her or asked to examine her badge, which was fortunate, since it was only her Avengers Tower keycard. The gun at her side probably helped, as well as the fact that shots had been fired.

Thor returned a few minutes after the emergency vehicles arrived, slamming down from the sky and badly frightening one of the paramedics. There was another surge of photo-happy fans, but this time the police were there to help control the situation. Steve looked up from where he bent over the gurney, carefully extracting his hand from that of the wounded man being wheeled into the back of the ambulance.

"Report," he ordered, wiping his bloody hands against each other and waving off an emergency worker who, seeing Steve's bullet wound, was approaching with a first aid kit. Peggy promptly intercepted the concerned paramedic, relieving him of the kit and rifling through it for some gauze even as she kept an eye on Thor's face. The Norse alien shook his head, and his face was tight.

"The one who shot you is dead, as are the others" he announced wearily, "but Stark captured one of his companions alive."

"Was - did the sniper have a metal arm?" Steve demanded, and Peggy could hear the strain in his voice. She moved behind him, renewing pressure on his wound with her handful of gauze until he staggered forward a step, but he hardly seemed to notice, hanging on Thor's words.

"No," Thor answered. "No, they were both of flesh and bone."

Not Bucky, then. Peggy felt every muscle in her husband's back slacken with relief as his unspoken fear drained away. She drew a long breath of her own, and then turned to summon Bruce, who was already hurrying in with his own first aid kit and an air of distracted determination that she knew even Steve would give way to.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The quinjet was very quiet on the way back. To nobody's surprise, the attackers had been Hydra, with Hydra's penchant for cyanide. The Avengers had come away with no useful information, two wounded members, and twelve civilians hospitalized. Their only prisoner was currently stuffed into one of the storage units of the jet, and he wasn't talking.

Natasha was the first to speak, nursing her leg. One of the Hydra thugs had been unexpectedly quick with a knife. "That went well," she drawled, eyes dark with frustration.

Steve had a grim look around his jaw, but otherwise betrayed no sign of the pain he was in. A compression bandage was tight across his back, throbbing with each pulse of his heart, and his mouth tasted like blood. The bullet had not gone through - he would need it removed once they got back to the medical center in the tower. It grated painfully against bone with every breath, but he was pretty sure nobody except Peggy could tell.

"You said the building was clear, Stark." He held his voice level, trying not to let his frustration seep through. Tony looked tired - really tired - and for just a moment Steve was tempted to let the conversation wait. Still, if there was a problem, he figured it was better to hash it out now while it was fresh. "What happened? The entire wall was rigged to go off."

"It's called human error," snapped Tony, trying to rub his face, and almost jabbing himself in the eye with his gauntlet instead. His voice was unusually heavy with sarcasm, even for him. "Ever heard of it? Oh no, wait, you're Captain run-all-day-with-a-bullet-in-my-back America, never mind."

"That was uncalled for," Bruce remarked after a minute of surprise. The billionaire usually wasn't quite so caustic. Tony rolled his eyes and then slid his faceplate home, presenting an impenetrable mask to the world.

As the minutes stretched on, Steve couldn't tell whether Stark was sleeping or sulking. For all he knew, the man could be playing video games in there. He considered trying to restart the discussion, but a slight shake of Banner's head stopped him. After all, the doctor knew Stark better than any of them, and he trusted Banner's instincts.

For the rest of the flight, Iron Man remained silent in his corner, Bruce watching him steadily.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"What on earth were you thinking?" Peggy demanded, storming down the hall after her husband.

Steve had kept up a good front before everybody else, but Peggy could tell how much pain he was in. She'd had quite a lot of practice during the war, and he hadn't changed a bit since then. Just because he was strong and healed quickly didn't mean a bullet in the back hurt any less, especially after the adrenaline and drive of action had subsided.

After the quinjet landed, he had quietly slipped away. She waited just long enough to shuck off her jacket and alert the medical wing before hurrying after him.

"Hey," said Steve mildly. He was halfway down the hall, doggedly working his way toward the elevator. Peggy ignored the bloodiness of his uniform, stepping close under his arm and taking some of his weight.

"When a man gets shot, he's supposed to wait for medical assistance before running five blocks and getting into a fight," she scolded, pushing the button for the elevator.

Steve huffed a half-laugh and then winced at the movement. This discussion was an old one. They'd had it so many times, they both practically knew it by heart. "Couldn't help it, Peg. Besides, you were out there just as fast."

"I wasn't the one with a bullet in my back," Peggy retorted, bustling him into the elevator when it opened, and slapping the button for the medical floor. Steve leaned his shoulder and head against the wall. Now that everybody was home and safe, and the situation was over, he could feel himself crashing. He really wished he could take a deep breath, but anything more than shallow panting sent pain seizing up his insides.

Peggy didn't say anything else for a while. At some point his eyes must have closed, but he could feel her move behind him and start undoing the buckles of his harness, letting the heavy straps slide forward over his shoulders and fall to the floor.

"Stark'd have a heyday if he knew," he mumbled as she started working on his gloves. "You takin' m' things off in the elevator."

"Stark has a filthy mind," Peggy replied calmly, pulling off the second glove and sweeping up the tangled mess from the floor. The doors opened, and she took her place under his arm again. "Come on, let's get you fixed up before you heal over that bullet entirely."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

One thing that had improved since the war was the pain medication. Peggy still had vivid memories of digging bullets out of Steve's body as his flesh quivered in agony, Bucky and Dugan holding him down. Morphine had only ever taken the barest edge off for him, and eventually he had refused to take it altogether.

"It doesn't do much for me," he had admitted. "Save it for the other guys."

He still carried an old bullet actually, embedded too deep near his spine and other internal organs to be easily removed. Long since healed over, it still set off the occasional metal detector in Tony's lab, much to the inventor's annoyance, since the captain wouldn't tell him what exactly was doing it.

Yes, modern medicine was much better - even if it left Steve a little loopy and sluggish.

"Here's lookin' at you, kid," the captain mumbled as he regained consciousness. Peggy looked up from the information on Tony's flash drive that she'd been perusing, smiling as she met his eyes.

"You probably say that to all the girls," she teased, reaching out to take his hand. He beamed at her touch, something tender and breathtaking leaping up in his unguarded eyes. Pain medication always left him with his soul laid open for her to see.

"Just the one I'm married to," he countered, eyelids fluttering as he fought off the effects of the drug. Then he frowned, adorably petulant. "Don't s'pose you can stop the walls from wobbling?"

Peggy's lips twitched with amusement as she reached to turn the IV drip down. Her husband's eyes almost immediately began clearing as his powerful metabolism worked to clear up the drugs in his system. He shifted uncomfortably and tried to sit up, but her hand on his chest stopped him at once.

"Lie down, captain," she ordered firmly. "Even you don't get over a bullet to the back that easily."

With a sigh, he lay back, eyes intent on her face, bringing up his hand to cover hers. "You okay?" he asked suddenly, and she hedged, avoiding the question, tangling her fingers with his.

Truth be told, she'd been worried. In the time since Steve had rooted Hydra out of SHIELD, there had been a number of attempts made on his life. When he went out, they could both feel eyes on their backs, sometimes even when they were in disguise. It was disconcerting and worrying, and days like this when he ended up in the medical wing were her least favorite.

Then again, she was married to a man who carried a target on his back, both literally and figuratively. They both knew the crosshairs of the underworld would always be leveled at him.

The click of ridiculously expensive high heels in the hallway heralded Pepper's arrival. "Oh, hi - you're awake," she noticed, setting a tablet on the edge of the bed and meticulously beginning to straighten the clutter on the table. "Is your back feeling any better? I can get you some more medicine if you'd like."

Steve shook his head, edging higher on the pillows until Peggy gave him a firm look. "Thanks, but I'm okay. What's on the tablet?"

Pepper made a little face. "I'm afraid your guess is as good as mine. One of the computer banks didn't blow up completely, and we got off what we could. It's encoded, but JARVIS is running diagnostics now."

The words were hardly out of her mouth before the captain turned to look at his wife. "Peggy?" he asked, but she already had the tablet in her hands, tapping busily away, biting her lips.

"Paper," she ordered, not looking up. Steve winced a little as he reached for the clipboard with his medical records on it, flipping the pages around so the blank backs were to the front before handing it over.

"She's one of the best codebreakers we ever had," he explained to Pepper. His pride in his wife was very apparent. "She can crack just about anything."

"You're exaggerating again, darling," Peggy pointed out absently, words muffled by the pen she was holding in her mouth. "Do let me concentrate."

Steve just grinned.

It took her a little over an hour, working in tandem with JARVIS, but in the end Peggy sat back with a pleased hum of triumph. The tablet flashed as lines of data resolved themselves, and Steve's face was bright with pride in her success. Then the light faded in her eyes, and she frowned, leaning over the screen.

"Peggy?" Steve asked, sitting up again. This time she didn't stop him, instead leaning forward to hand him the data pad.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked, voice tense. The color drained from Steve's already too-pale face, and he looked up with steel in his gaze.

"We need to call Fury. Now."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **The line "Here's looking at you, kid," is from the 1942 film** _ **Casablanca**_ **, which Steve Rogers certainly would have seen.**

 **Thanks for stopping by! I'm still looking for a Czech/Slovak/Serbo-Croatian/South Slavic speaker who is willing to translate. Even if you don't have an account on this site, let me know in a review and I can post the lines somewhere you can see them.**

 **A Guest and Fan: Yeah, I'd be really sad if you couldn't read it too. That's why I tried to explain - the rating isn't for edgy or inappropriate scenes; the story just feels a little older to me.**

 **Anonymous: Thank you! Don't worry, I will.**

 **Obsessed Fan:** _ **A Rare Camaraderie**_ **was so much fun to write - I'm glad you like it!**

 **Regarding the title - Ha! No, no ridiculous amounts of cuddling or anything. It's just because my brain said, "PLOT!" and I asked, "Title?" and it went, "Umm... Cradle?" And I've always been really bad at renaming things once they're stuck in my head.** _ **Sarcophagus**_ **was that way too, and so was the doll I got when I was four and named Blow Dryer.**

 **I do have a couple reasons for calling it** _ **Cradle**_ **though. Nobody has ever guessed the original reason except my closest sibling, which just goes to show apparently we think alike. The other reason is a little clearer. Like I've said, this story will include events from** _ **Age of Ultron**_ **.** _ **Sarcophagus**_ **featured a large body-sized container as part of Project: Sarcophagus (see chapter 9 of that story). In** _ **Age of Ultron**_ **, another large body-sized container is prominently featured, and Dr. Cho calls it a "cradle." It seemed like a natural progression to me. Just go with it, okay? And then there are a few other minor reasons that probably only work in my twisted brain, and which I will therefore keep to myself, lest you all think I'm nuts. I mean, more nuts than is already apparent. :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Glass shattered against the wall, and Tony cursed long and fluently. Behind him, Clint jolted to his feet and walked to the window, arms tightly crossed across his chest. Thunder rolled around the tower, and Thor loomed over one end of the conference table.

"They swore it would be safe," he rumbled. "We left it in their hands as a gesture of good faith, and they waited this long to tell us?"

Peggy stifled a sigh, blinking tired eyes. Being the liaison between the Avengers and what was left of SHIELD could be a thankless job. She'd spent the entire morning trying to pin down Fury, and then the entire afternoon trying to get a straight answer out of the man.

"I don't know any more than what I've told you," she explained again. "All they said was that it is missing from the place it was contained in. I doubt they would have even told us that much if we hadn't found it referenced in that encoded file from Chicago."

Truth was, the remnants of SHIELD hadn't told the Avengers much about anything since the Hydra fiasco in DC. The rubble of the Triskelion had taken ages to sort out, and other SHIELD strongholds had been obliterated or infiltrated at the same time. Even this much later, documentation was only beginning to come in, and nobody liked what they were seeing. Hundreds if not thousands of things had gone missing. Files, hard drives, laptops, alien artifacts, blank permission slips, security badges, flash drives, keys, data tablets - the list kept growing.

Evidently Loki's scepter was on that list as well.

The worst thing was, nobody was entirely sure what had happened to it. If it had been taken, was it by a Hydra sleeper agent, or was it by some perfectly ordinary citizen who wanted a souvenir from the destruction? And when had it disappeared - or had SHIELD ever even had it in their possession at all? Perhaps it had been entrusted to undercover Hydra agents straight off the bat.

The whole thing was an absolute nightmare, and Steve was getting a headache to go along with the pain in his back. Theoretically, he shouldn't have been up at all - but then, he'd never been one for the rules.

Getting up from his place at the table, he went to stand beside Clint, shutting out the buzz of voices behind him. Rain was beginning to fall, thick and fast, and lightening flickered through the clouds. Thor was most definitely upset.

"Hey, you okay?"

Clint hesitated, and then nodded, turning surprisingly clear eyes to the captain. "Yeah, I'm good. Let's get this job done." The set of his chin spoke of his determination, and Steve felt his own confidence rise when faced with the other man's spirit.

After the big showdown in Washington DC, when the Helicarriers had blown each other up, and Alexander Pierce paid the traitor's price, Steve had dragged himself back to consciousness in his hospital bed and for one single moment had dreamed that they'd defeated Hydra.

Of course, he'd had that dream before, after seeing Schmidt die and before running the _Valkyrie_ into the ice. With the head of Hydra gone, surely the rest would be easily defeatable. Peggy had thought the same. For months, she and the Howling Commandos had scoured Europe in search of remaining Hydra units. They had almost succeeded. Indeed, they had come the closest to succeeding than anybody ever had, either before or since.

Now it was time to try again.

"Right," he said, and turned back to the room at large, commanding their attention. "Thor has the most right of anybody on this planet to the scepter, so it's our responsibility to find it; let him take care of it for once and for all. If SHIELD won't work with us, then we'll go off of what we've got. Are you with me?"

His team looked up at him, and he could see the determination in their eyes.

Hydra would need to beware.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

After the meeting, Steve hung back and watched as Peggy finished putting her things away. At some point she had pulled her hair back with a pencil, and a few dark tendrils had escaped along the nape of her neck. For the thousandth time he wondered how he had managed to be blessed with her as his wife.

"Let me carry your books?" he asked as she picked up her notebook and data pad. She laughed at him, and he put on his most earnest expression until she gave in.

"Steve Rogers, you act like you're five years old," she told him firmly, and he grinned unrepentantly down into her face as he held the conference room door for her.

"Guilty as charged," he admitted, falling into step beside her. She was a little paler than usual, and he watched her, concerned.

"Stop that." She swatted him lightly on the arm, and he lifted his eyebrows, caught red-handed.

"Stop what?" He tried to look innocent, but knew he had failed when she shot him her most no-nonsense glare.

"Stop looking at me like I'm going to break," she ordered. "You're the one who ought to be in bed. I'm just tired, that's all. It's been a long day."

It had been a long day, but that wasn't why Steve was worried, and they both knew it. Peggy Rogers wasn't completely well. Even now, months later, she still suffered some lingering aftereffects from being frozen. She kept going with her usual determination, but she chilled easily and tired more quickly than she used to, and it bothered him.

Entering their suite, Peggy unlocked her filing cabinet and slipped her meeting notes in beside another slim file of papers. Steve caught one of her hands and held it, rubbing it gently until it was as warm as his own. He loved that he could touch her like this, casually, intimately, and it was even more incredible that she would let him.

"I still think you should check with Banner again," he said at last, running his thumb across the wedding band on her finger. The doctor had finally stopped running medical tests at Peggy's insistence, but Steve wasn't entirely satisfied.

Peggy shook her head decisively. "I'm tired of being a pincushion, Steve. You know the feeling."

The captain did know the feeling, quite well in fact, and reluctantly conceded her point. Throughout his life, and especially since Project Rebirth, he had been poked and prodded by countless doctors and nurses. Reading her victory in his face, Peggy softened. "I'm fine, just a little chilly."

"Warm you up?" he asked, opening his arms and fixing her with the endearing look that she had never quite been able to refuse. With a long breath, she settled against his chest, and he held her, pressing soft kisses in her hair until she warmed in his arms and hummed contentedly into his collar.

It was incredible, really.

After Steve Rogers' presumed death, Peggy had been terribly lonely, closing everyone out and focusing on her work to the exclusion of everything else. She had fought with her peers for a modicum of the trust Steve had always freely given her, and the struggle had been exhausting both mentally and emotionally.

And now - now Steve Rogers had come back into her life, bringing with him all of the love and honor and unwavering trust that she had thought lost forever. She had forgotten how it felt to trust somebody unreservedly; how it felt to care without fear of being considered weak. It still stunned her - being loved so completely and wholeheartedly. To be married to that man, to spend every hour knowing that he belonged to her was one of the most heady feelings of her life.

"You know we'll have to put Bucky on hold for this," she finally said, leaning back so she could get a good look at his face. He nodded gravely, looking over her shoulder at the slim file in the drawer that was all they knew of the history and activities of James Buchanan Barnes. The lines of responsibility across his forehead had never been deeper.

"I know," he admitted quietly, and she knew how much it cost him to say it. Leaning into him again, she wound her arms around her husband's shoulders and held him as closely as she could.

Steve had been looking for Bucky ever since he was well enough to leave his hospital bed after the fall of SHIELD. Peggy had joined him in the search, and together they had scoured every inch of the databases and news sources they had access to. Sam Wilson had been an enormous help - from his place in the VA, he heard some things that Steve would never have discovered any other way.

Still, the search was slow and discouraging, coming in last and at odd moments due to the more pressing problems that kept arising. And now, Loki's scepter was lost and Hydra was bent on revenge, and the project would be put on hold yet again.

"We'll work it out," she whispered into his ear, and felt him smile against her throat. "We took down Hydra before, darling. We can do it again."

" _You_ took them down," Steve corrected, voice slightly muffled against her skin. "I chopped off one head, but you kept cutting off all the others."

There, that was another thing Peggy loved about her husband. He always gave her credit for her work. It was unnecessary, but very gratifying. She enjoyed the feel of his arms around her for another moment and then leaned back so she could see his face again.

"Very well," she said crisply, and her eyes danced with determination. He watched her, the beginnings of hope sparking in his face as she spoke with decision. "They had better watch themselves then, because this time they'll have to deal with both of us."

Steve kissed her then, long and sweet, and she leaned into him with perfect confidence.

Apart, each was formidable.

Together, they were unstoppable.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"How's your chest doing?"

Tony Stark visibly jumped at the unexpected sound of Bruce's voice, and then tried to brush it off, taking a long drink from the mug sitting on a stack of clipboards. "Fine. Strong and manly. How's yours?"

Bruce raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Tony squirmed. "Stop looking at me like that," he ordered abruptly, spinning back to his holo-table.

"Tony…"

"Look, I'm fine, okay?" Tony did something clever with a holographic elbow joint, pointedly trying to ignore the fact that he could feel Bruce staring at him. "Hey, wow, look at the time. You should be in bed, Brucie-boy. Bedtime for all good little scientists and their not-so-little green friends."

Doctor Banner turned away, slowly walking down the length of the lab. He ran his fingers along the edges of the tables, idly toying with a prototype fiberglass Iron Man glove.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Tony," he finally said, and his voice was very low. "But the team does need to know about it."

The holographic elbow joint suddenly zoomed in as Tony's hand jerked. The billionaire tried to blink innocently. "I have no idea what you're getting at, Banner."

"Peripheral neuropathy," Bruce said. "I'm guessing right axillary."

Neither man moved for a moment, and then Tony looked up. He eyed the doctor carefully, and then apparently decided denial was futile.

"How did you know?" he finally asked instead, looking down at his hands, where they lay flat on the table.

Bruce shrugged. "Educated guess. You've been fidgety lately - not getting enough sleep, but I put that down to Pepper being gone. Natasha could tell that something was up too. Then you kept rubbing your chest, and things finally came together. How long has it been since the surgery?"

With a sweep of his fingers, Tony cleared the screen before snapping it off. "Long enough that I thought I was done with side-effects," he growled. "This started up months ago, not long before Cap's wedding. I thought it would go away…" he cut himself off abruptly.

"But it's been getting worse," Bruce quietly finished. "What did the doctor say?"

Tony bounced restlessly on his toes, eyes looking everywhere but at his friend. "Told me to try massaging around it, gave me some medicine to rub into it, and basically said 'good luck.'" He hesitated before continuing. "He did give me some stronger pain meds, but I don't like to use them."

Bruce understood. Tony Stark had struggled with substance abuse years before any of them knew him. With the support of first Pepper and Rhodey, and then the rest of the Avengers, he had been improving, but prescription pain medication was an easy thing to slip with.

"Does Pepper know?" he asked, and Tony snorted, nodding.

"Surprised me with a hug, and watched me go straight through the roof," he remembered wryly.

Leaning his elbows on the table, Bruce surveyed his friend thoughtfully. He had done his research before confronting Tony. Everything fit - the irritability, the sleepiness - everything. Tony always looked tired, but he had looked even wearier lately. Then Natasha had told him about the explosion inside the Hydra base, and the way Tony had been momentarily unable to get up after the piece of cement hit him, and everything came together.

"Would you like to try meditation with me?" he offered cautiously. "It's been known to help nerve damage."

Tony shook off his sober mood, shaking his head and turning back to his technological toys. "I'm not the type for all that stuff. There's got to be a technical solution for this. I'm Iron Man; I can figure it out."

The topic was closed, and Bruce knew that pushing would do no good. Tony had done all the touchy-feely talking he would do tonight. Shifting the mock gauntlet in his hand, he made to put it down and then paused, examining it more closely.

"Um, Tony, what is this?"

Looking up, Tony saw what the doctor was holding and visibly brightened. "What does it look like?" he asked, suddenly eager, as though the previous conversation had never happened.

"Well, I thought it was a glove for the suit, but there's no opening for the hand." Bruce frowned, inspecting the wrist joint before looking up sharply. "It's robotic," he stated, almost a question.

Tony nodded once, flipping on the holotable again. "Eliminating human error," he announced grandly, pulling up his blueprints. Apparently his failure to notice the rigged computer banks was still bothering him.

"By building a robot." Bruce's voice was flat.

"No," Tony corrected, grinning widely. "By letting JARVIS join the party."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hey! So - that's what's wrong with Tony. Bet none of you saw that coming. But I have plans...**

 **Oh, in case you were wondering - peripheral neuropathy is a fairly common side-effect that can follow major surgery, and can often develop weeks or even months after the actual surgery. There's a lot of different kinds, but basically the nerves have been damaged so they send messages to your brain all the time telling it that you're in pain. So you genuinely feel pain - but there's no easy way to fix it. Pain medication can help, and some have found relief through techniques like meditation or massage.**

 **I could go on - but I won't. :) Thanks for your kind comments. Y'all are a great set of people. Have a good day!**

* * *

 **ChildofGod: I can't tell you how fun it was to follow you through to this point! Here's the next chapter, at long last. And - wow, you are one sharp-eyed person! Thanks for helping me out! And yes, "shucks" is a very useful word, though I don't often hear people outside my family saying it.**

 **Shasta M: Your review made me smile so big. It made the end of a long and frankly exhausting day much better. Thank you so much! I'm thrilled you're enjoying it, and that you liked** _ **Opposites**_ **!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy opened her eyes and wondered what had woken her up. The room was dark and quiet, and the lit numbers on the bedside clock told her it was past midnight.

It wasn't unusual for her to wake up suddenly. Both she and Steve had seen more than their fair share of horrors, and more than once she had woken to find him sitting bolt upright or reaching to touch her, struggling to distinguish dreams from reality. Peggy wasn't a sound sleeper either. In the first week of their marriage she had given Steve a black eye, fighting off a nightmare, unused to having somebody else in her bed.

He had been very understanding, if rather startled. She had been mortified.

Still, this sudden awakening didn't seem to be nightmare related. She had no recollection of a bad dream, and her husband was fast asleep, breathing deeply. He wasn't usually a heavy sleeper, but his body was still healing from the sniper's bullet.

Rising up on her elbow a little, Peggy looked down at him in the dim glow of the moonlight - her big, sweet, American lover, arm heavy across her waist, sprawled in their bed. Heart swelling fondly, she ran her eyes across his face, memorizing each line for the thousandth time. He was so incredibly precious to her that sometimes the sheer depth of her love for him made her heart ache.

She was just reminding herself that he needed his sleep and she probably shouldn't wrap her arms around him and kiss him awake when something made her pause.

They were not alone.

Somebody was in their rooms.

Very cautiously, Peggy started to sit up, but forgot to take into account her husband's sleeping habits. They had quickly discovered that no matter how they fell asleep, Steve nearly always ended up wrapped around his wife. Now, at her movement, he buried his nose more deeply into her shoulder and mumbled something indecipherable in his sleep. His arm curled closer around her, palm warm on her spine, and for just a moment Peggy wavered. Stark had excellent security on his building; surely nothing could get in.

No, there it was again - the slightest of sounds.

"I'll be right back, darling," she whispered into his ear, and slipped out of his unconscious hold, careful not to jostle the bed too much. If it was Tony Stark, she was going to have his hide.

Gun in hand, Peggy crouched low, stepping softly down the hallway and keeping close to the wall. Whoever it was, they were in the front room. Reaching the doorway, she dropped to the floor and rolled behind a couch. She and Steve had strategically positioned the furniture with situations exactly like this one in mind.

"Stop right there," she announced, rising to her knees and training the gun on the shadowy figure she could just barely make out. "I am armed, and will shoot. Identify yourself."

For a long moment, neither one moved. Then the figure began to walk steadily towards her, and raised an arm. The dim light from the window glinted off metal, and Peggy's heart skipped a beat.

"Barnes?" she faltered. She knew Bucky had been given a metal arm, although she had only ever seen pictures. "Barnes, is that you?"

The figure didn't stop its slow advance, clanking softly. It was tall, taller than she remembered Barnes ever being - taller even than Steve.

Peggy Rogers made a snap decision, set her teeth, and pulled the trigger.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The gunshot jolted Steve wide awake, and he automatically threw himself sideways to cover his wife, only to realize she wasn't there. Panic flared up in his heart, and then his hand found the empty space beneath her pillow. Chances were good that she was the one who had fired the shot.

Peggy looked up calmly and tried to hide her smile as Captain America barrelled out of their bedroom. He was in his nightclothes, carrying his shield, and had the most fantastic bedhead.

"Good morning, Captain," she greeted him cheerily, and he blinked back at her, groping absently for the light switch.

Steve had been in love with Peggy for a very long time.

He had been attracted to her ever since she punched Hodge in the face on the first day of training, and knew he was a goner when she helped him rescue Bucky against orders. The day she kissed him goodbye, he'd known she would always be the only girl for him - and then she joined him in the twenty-first century, faced down Fury, and took Steve up on their long-delayed dance, and he discovered he loved her even more than he had seventy years before.

On their wedding day, Steve figured a man's heart couldn't hold any more love. This had to be it, the culminating height. Things simply couldn't get better than this, he'd thought - only to be proved wrong the next morning as he watched her wake up in his arms.

Even then, it didn't stop.

Waking up next to her in the morning, falling asleep with her hair tickling his nose at night, cooking and cleaning and working and dreaming together and eating burned eggs out of the supposedly non-stick pan that Jane Foster had given them for their wedding - married life just kept getting better. And now as Peggy looked up at him, gun in hand, dressed in her nightgown and standing over a fallen tangle of metal, Steve fell in love all over again, so hard that he actually lost his breath and could only stare giddily at the wonderful woman who was his wife.

Peggy cocked her head with a smile and put a hand on her hip, although he didn't miss the fact that she kept her gun warily trained on the metal at her feet. "Are you going to keep staring at me, or are you going to help me figure out what this is?"

Dragging himself back to the issue at hand, Steve crossed the room to her side and pulled his eyes away from her long enough to look down at the thing on the floor. It looked like a clumsy mock-up of an Iron Man suit, but there was nobody inside it.

"Something of Stark's," he guessed, and prodded it with the edge of his shield. "JARVIS, is this thing active?"

JARVIS didn't answer, which wasn't unusual at this time of night. Sometimes when Tony couldn't sleep, he would create upgrades or reboot his AI. With a sigh, Steve bent to pick up the thing, hefting it over his shoulder. Peggy shot him a worried look.

"Are you sure you're up for that?" she asked, referencing the healing bullet wound. It had been an ugly one, but a couple days of rest had him well on his way back to normal.

"I'm fine," he promised. "Gotta get this back to the mad scientist downstairs." He turned to the door, but she stopped him, coming around to rake her hands through his hair, finger-combing it until it looked more acceptable. "Wait," she told him decidedly. "I'll come with you. If Stark's sending robots in here, he's getting a piece of my mind."

Steve paused, intrigued. "You're coming with me dressed like that?" he asked, and she tipped her chin up defiantly.

"What's wrong with the way I look?"

Steve carefully kept the corners of his mouth from twitching as he looked his wife up and down, but the sparkle in his eye gave him away, and he could see her blush faintly at his frank admiration. "Nothing," he finally decided emphatically. "But I won't be responsible for anything Tony says if he sees you like that."

Peggy looked down at her nightgown - the soft, fetching one that she knew Steve liked best. "I suppose you're right," she admitted. "He is his father's son, after all. Give me a moment - I'll fetch my robe."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Steve swung the metal suit off his shoulder and onto a lab table with a resounding crash. Then he straightened, fixing Tony Stark with his sternest look.

"What did you do to it?" demanded Tony, dismayed. He pulled off the face mask and brandished a screwdriver, poking at the wiring inside.

"I shot it." Peggy leaned against the doorframe, arms folded across her chest. She did not look amused. "What was your creation doing in our apartment, Stark?"

"It is yours, isn't it?" Steve interjected, pointing to the large Stark insignia stamped on the inside of the face mask.

Tony frowned at the suit and then looked at Peggy with a trifle more respect than he usually used. "How many times did you shoot it?"

"Once," Peggy answered. "It was dark; I thought it was Hydra."

Scratching his head, Tony took another look at the suit and then threw both hands up in the air. "One bullet in the dark, and you just happen to hit the wire cluster in the arm and short out the whole thing. No wonder my connection went dead. Remind me not to sneak my stuff into your place at night any more."

Steve and Peggy shared a look of consternation, which Tony completely ignored. Bringing up a screen, he tapped away busily. "All right, let's start from the top. What was your reaction when you saw the Iron Junior unit?"

"I shot it," Peggy said again, very dryly. "'Iron Junior' - that's a dreadful name."

"It's in the works," Tony promised. "Prototype. I need to know the impression this will have on the average unsuspecting person. Not that either of you are average, but I'll make do. How was the volume on the voice? Too loud? Too soft? Not enough AC/DC?"

Peggy came over to look at the screen as well. "There was no voice. JARVIS wasn't working in our apartment either. I think you left him on mute."

Tony opened his mouth to protest, and then shut it, sliding things around. Then he sat back as Peggy poked at something on the screen. "Oh."

"Thank you, Miss Carter," said JARVIS almost instantly. "Sir, the time is now 3:28 AM. I recommend a glass of warm milk before retiring to be-"

Tony waved a hand and the computerized voice cut off mid-word.

"Now I remember why I had him on mute," he grumbled, raking a hand through his hair.

"We're missing the main point here." Steve was trying very hard not to be annoyed. "What exactly was your robot doing in our front room in the middle of the night? There is this concept called privacy."

"There's also a concept called 'keeping civilians out of danger.'" Tony came around the end of the table, and snatched up the discarded mask in one hand. "Six civilians hurt in Chicago, Cap. Six, remember? And who knows how many after New York, and London, and DC."

Steve gritted his teeth. "I remember." He couldn't help it. For his whole life he had been driven by the desire to protect others. It was the memory of the innocents he had failed that pushed him to keep training, to keep fighting, to keep pressing forward.

For a moment longer the two faced one another, and then Tony twirled the mask between his hands, setting it on the table between them with a metallic _clunk_. "JARVIS can help. If nothing else, he can help keep rubberneckers from sticking their noses where they don't belong."

There was merit to the idea, and Steve recognized that, although he approached it with caution. "See what you can do," he finally said, rubbing a tired hand over his face. "You might have something there. But keep it out of our place at night, okay?"

Tony pulled a face and nodded, although he didn't quite promise. Instead he frowned, stabbing a finger at the air. "Wait, what are you wearing?"

Steve looked down at his robe. "Tony, it's the middle of the night. We were in bed."

"No, no - is that a _nightshirt_?" Incredulously, Tony bent over the table to stare at the striped hem hanging out below the edge of the captain's robe. "Seriously - just when I think we've got you civilized, and then you go wear something like that."

Steve's jaw took on a defensive angle. "It's comfortable," he pointed out, and turned to the door. "Goodnight, Stark."

"Goodnight," Peggy echoed. "Oh, and Tony - go to bed. JARVIS has a point; warm milk works wonders."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Bruce passed Steve and Peggy as they left the lab. He stared after them for a long moment, and then slowly looked at Tony, who was rubbing his chest with a grimace.

"What was that all about?" he asked cautiously, scanning the room. He wasn't sure if he had ever seen Peggy traipse around the tower anything less than fully dressed, let alone in the middle of the night.

Tony pulled the front off of the Iron Junior mock-up on the table, and adjusted welding goggles over his eyes. "I sent the bot to their room. Needed to find out how unsuspecting civilians would react."

Bruce felt his eyebrows twitch. "And?" he prompted.

The soldering gun spat fire, and Tony fiddled with the knob. "And then Rosie the Riveter went and shot it straight through a vital wiring junction, and she and JARVIS teamed up on me."

A chuckle bubbled up in Bruce's throat, and he turned away so Tony wouldn't see. "You're lucky it came back in one piece," he commented instead, going through the papers on his desk. Not finding what he was looking for, he began rifling through his untidy bookshelf, flipping through some of his precious books. He had been able to hang onto very little from his old life, but a few of his books had survived, and rattled around the world with him. It was kind of nice, he thought absently, to have a shelf where they belonged.

Tony looked up from his work, the flame dangerously close to his fingers. "Looking for something? Isn't this late for you?"

Something that looked suspiciously like a scribbled napkin fell from between the pages of the book Bruce was holding, and he glanced at it briefly before sticking it in his pocket, replacing the book on the shelf. "No," he said. "Just hunting down a number."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"I don't know if this idea of his is going to work," Steve confessed, padding barefoot up the stairs after his wife. "Tony thinks he can solve every problem by throwing technology at it, and he never thinks of people or their privacy."

Peggy paused on the landing, breathing a little hard. Steve made a mental note to take the elevator next time she was with him. He knew she still wasn't feeling well - although if he told her his train of thought, she would probably insist on climbing every staircase in sight.

"He gets it from his father," she told him, stubbornly beginning the next flight.

"Howard was never that bad," Steve protested, rounding the turn behind her, but she shook her head.

"You didn't see him after the war," she explained quietly. "After you went down, and they dropped the A-bombs, he was desperate to make things better. He just…" she hesitated, searching for words. "He didn't always go about it the best way."

They reached their floor at last, and Steve held the door for her. He felt weary, frustrated with Tony for his erratic behavior, frustrated with himself. Peggy, reading his mood, stepped closer, running her hands soothingly along his tense shoulders until they began to relax. Then a playful light crept into her eyes, and she stood on tiptoes, backing him into the wall and kissing him very thoroughly and suddenly before taking a quick step out of his arms. He blinked, dazed, and she couldn't help laughing at the surprised look on his face.

"Hurry up, Captain," she told him, fighting the smile that threatened to swallow her entire face. "Or I'll steal all the pillows."

He chased her, dodging and laughing, all the way down the hall and swept her off her feet when he caught her, exquisite happiness bursting in his chest.

Life wasn't perfect. The Avengers didn't always get along, Bucky was still out there somewhere, and the scepter was missing, but having Peggy Carter Rogers by his side brought a whole new level of joy into his world.

No, life wasn't perfect, but it was really, really good.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **So - I finally saw** _ **Civil War**_ **.**

 **Heart. Broken. (Sniff!)**

 **Also, I'm very exasperated with all of them. I know why Pepper wasn't in the movie - because if she had been, she'd have hit them all over the head with a large tape dispenser and then made them sit down and** _ **talk**_ **\- and then there would be less drama and explosions and fewer people would go see it.**

 **On the plus side though, now I can go read all these great _Civil War_ fanfics, so that's a good thing.**

 **Like this chapter? Then let me know, because it's my fuel. Have a great day, you all!**

* * *

 **ChildofGod: It depends on the type and extent of the nerve damage. Sometimes it goes away on its own, sometimes people have it for life. Oh, and I** _ **figured**_ **that was you, but I didn't want to make awkward assumptions, so I tried really hard not to say anything. :)**

 **A Guest and Fan: Heart attack was a good guess. I'm glad you were wrong too - although to be honest, when I saw** _ **Civil War**_ **, I expected Tony to keel over with one any minute. I mean, among other things (ahem, left arm mention), his blood pressure had to be sky-high for the last half of the movie.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"So, man - what're your plans for Thanksgiving?"

Surprised, Steve shook his head. "Nothing particular," he confessed. "We might go out to a restaurant or something."

Sam blinked over the Skype connection. "You're kidding me. Is that what you did last year?"

There wasn't really a good way to answer that one, Steve realized.

To be honest, last Thanksgiving hadn't been much to speak of for either of them. He had come home from a strenuous mission with the STRIKE team in the wee hours of the morning and gone straight to bed, waking up in the late afternoon. With no friends or family to spend the day with and no fresh food in the apartment, he'd ended up doing laundry and eating endless peanut butter sandwiches in an attempt to get his protein and carbohydrate levels back to where they ought to be.

Peggy's last Thanksgiving had been just as uneventful. She had spent it doing overtime at the office, working on paperwork that her coworkers had shuffled onto her with the assumption that since she wasn't an American, she wouldn't have any special dinner plans.

"Um," said Steve, trying to find an answer that wouldn't sound completely pathetic.

Sam looked mortally offended. "Oh, _that_ is unacceptable. You're coming down to my place. Mom won't mind an extra super soldier, and she'll love Peggy."

Steve frowned. "Thanks for the offer, but we can't just barge in on you."

"Oh, you'll barge." Sam sounded very positive. "You will barge in on us, or I will come out there and haul you back myself."

"Is that a threat?" Steve tried to make it serious, but couldn't quite keep the corners of his mouth from curling up. He had missed Sam, all the way down there in D.C.

Sam shrugged. "Not from me, it isn't. My mother though, she'll be real put out - and you don't want to offend that lady. No, sir. You thought Hydra was bad, but you never seen her when folks don't show up to dinner."

The mental image of a shorter, fiercer, female version of Sam popped up in his head, and Steve suddenly couldn't help smiling. He hadn't had a family to celebrate Thanksgiving with since before the war.

"We'll bring something," he promised, but Sam shook his head firmly.

"I'd tell you to bring your appetite, but we both know that won't be a problem," he pointed out teasingly. The last time he and Steve had gone to an all-you-can-eat place had been the stuff of legend. "You just show up, and we'll show you what a real Wilson Thanksgiving dinner is like."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The door to the small, featureless room slid open.

The prisoner from Chicago looked up curiously as a woman with dark hair stepped in, neatly and professionally dressed. Behind her stalked another woman, but this one the prisoner actually knew by name. Natasha Romanoff flipped her red hair back and settled in the corner of the room, locking the door firmly behind her.

"Good morning," said the one with the dark hair. Apparently she was British, unless she was faking the accent.

"Go step in front of a cement truck," the prisoner retorted immediately, leering as he looked her up and down, eyes lingering on her curves. He hadn't met her before – SHIELD had sent other interrogators, but so far none of them had been quite good enough to get anything out of him. Romanoff's presence was a little disconcerting, though. The stories about her weren't pretty.

The British woman took the only other chair the room provided, facing him straight on. As far as the prisoner could tell, she wasn't even armed.

"Let's get this straight," she said crisply. "We don't have a lot of time. You're going to tell my friend and I everything about Loki's scepter and the other Hydra bases you know about."

Incredulous, the prisoner laughed, still eyeing her figure. "In your dreams, lady."

The Englishwoman didn't appear flustered; instead she tilted her head and smiled discomfitingly. Behind her, Natasha grinned broadly, settled herself more comfortably against the wall, and pulled out a knife to clean her fingernails.

Despite himself, the prisoner felt a flicker of worry.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Clint Barton was eating popcorn.

He'd brought a great dish of it into the observation room, and was currently being very generous with it. He could afford to – he and Thor were the only people in the tower who liked their popcorn flavored liberally with tabasco sauce and cayenne, and Thor was off on yet another attempt to find the scepter. The alien was certain that he would be able to tell where it was if he could only get close enough. So far there had been no luck.

"Want any?" Clint offered the bowl to Steve, who was watching Peggy with fierce pride as the two women slowly and methodically reduced their prisoner to a babbling mess without even touching him.

"Thanks." Steve automatically took a few kernels and then choked, reaching for his water, eyes streaming. "Ugh, I keep forgetting what you do to perfectly good popcorn. Whatever happened to butter and salt?"

"You're welcome." Clint gleefully spoke around his own mouthful, pulling the large bowl into his lap and setting his heels on the table as he watched the two most capable interrogators on the team do their work. "Has Nat done her grin-of-fear thing yet? It's my favorite part."

To be completely honest, Peggy and Natasha were terrifying together, even though neither of them raised their voice even once. Exactly forty-nine minutes after they walked in, they re-emerged with a full confession, leaving the Hydra agent sitting in a pool of his own perspiration.

Unfortunately, the man hadn't known anything about the scepter.

On the good side, he did have information on three other previously unknown bases.

The Avengers spent a week and a half cleaning up the new bases and combing through the retrieved data, hunting for further leads. While nothing turned up on the scepter case, they did find very definite traces that the Winter Soldier had been held at one of the bases for some time a few years before. The equipment was all still there, dusty and shoved into a closet, and Steve's face turned ghastly in its fury when he kicked the door down and found it.

Peggy found him there later, when the rest of the Avengers were busy cleaning up the aftermath of the fight. Shoulders tense, he stood staring at the chair with its awful restraints, so completely focused that he twitched in surprise when Peggy slipped her hand around his clenched fist.

She had been rummaging through the paper files while Natasha copied off the hard drives. Now, as she stood at Steve's side, her jacket pocket rustled stiffly. Some of the papers would bear a little private investigation.

"There was no way," she reminded him quietly, after a few minutes of silence. "You had no idea he was alive."

Steve nodded stiffly, still staring at the chair with hot anger.

"I know," he admitted at last. "Doesn't change the fact I wasn't there for him, though."

Peggy didn't answer; only worked his fist open until she could lace her fingers between his, and they stood hand-in-hand, grieving for their friend yet again.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

They got back to the tower very late Wednesday night, and Peggy went straight to the kitchen, discarding her coat carelessly over a chair as she went. Steve was a little slower, hanging his own things up as well as hers. Between the two of them, he was the tidier one.

By the time he joined her, she was already pulling out the canister of flour, tossing an apron at him so it landed on his head and shoulders.

"Wash that dirt off your hands, soldier," she ordered, twisting her hair back into a knot, "and start peeling. I don't care what Sam said; we are _not_ about to show up empty-handed at somebody else's Thanksgiving dinner."

Steve obediently tied the apron on and groped for a peeler from the drawer. "Our first Thanksgiving," he observed, and Peggy couldn't resist coming across to kiss the ridiculous grin off his face.

She ended up getting flour on both of them. Steve didn't care.

They almost fell asleep in one of the kitchen chairs while waiting for the cooking time to finish, worn out with the hectic pace of the last few weeks. Steve's legs sprawled out, arms slung around Peggy as she curled drowsily in his lap, her head heavy on his shoulder, cold hands cuddled up against his chest.

The timer eventually went off with a shrill beeping and Steve groaned, jostling his wife gently to wake her. "Mmm," she complained sleepily, but roused herself enough to get the pie out of the oven.

"Do you think it's too pale?" she demanded, examining the crust with concern after landing the dish safely on the cooling rack. "It might be too pale. Mr. Jarvis's pies looked more golden, I think."

Steve looked at her, standing in their kitchen dressed in her combat clothing and an apron with flour on her face and a teaspoon jabbed through the knot in her hair. Then he looked at the clock and yawned.

"It's perfect," he told her, and meant it. "Come to bed, sweetheart."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Drop that pie and I'll cream you," Peggy threatened briskly, trying to figure out how to open the car's trunk. "I presume this is intended to open?"

Steve crouched, carefully balancing the dish in both hands as he examined the back of the car. "Probably. Knowing Tony, you'll have to talk to it or something."

Peggy flipped her hair out of her face and bent, running her hands across the tailgate. Then she scowled, propping her fists on her hips and giving the tire an experimental kick. "Oh, this is ridiculous. JARVIS?"

"Of course, Miss Carter." The trunk popped open at once with a smooth _swish_. Peggy sniffed and stepped around to the passenger door as Steve grinned, carefully setting the pie in the back so it wouldn't move around as he drove. Usually they went places on his motorcycle, Peggy warm against his back, her arms around his waist - but this ride was going to be a little long for that.

The sky was just beginning to brighten as they drove out of town, engine purring smoothly. Holiday traffic would be a nightmare later in the day, so they'd opted to get an early start. Peggy yawned, curling her feet up beneath her and leaning over the center console to lay her head on his shoulder. He smiled affectionately, settling back into his seat as he felt her doze off.

They'd had a busy week, and a late night. If anybody deserved to sleep, it was her. Besides, the drive from New York to D.C. was four hours on a good day. Today being Thanksgiving, it was bound to take longer.

They had plenty of time. Peggy could rest.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The Wilson house was white, set in a modest neighborhood with a carefully trimmed lawn and a driveway already packed with cars. Steve pulled up at the curb, and they both sat and looked at the house for a while. It had been so long since either of them had spent much time with a lot of ordinary people - people who weren't associated with the army or the SSR or SHIELD or the Avengers.

"You ready?" Steve asked at last, and Peggy squared her shoulders, feeling oddly as if she was walking into battle.

Sam met them at the door.

"Hey, guess who finally showed up?" he called, steering the captain straight into the kitchen, Peggy coming behind with the doubtfully pale pie. "Mama - this guy turned up on my doorstep. Can I keep him?"

Mrs. Wilson was a tiny woman, with all her son's feisty humor sparkling out of her eyes, and she immediately put Steve to work mashing potatoes, which he did with great energy after the long drive. Peggy found herself just a bit at a loss at first, trying to figure out what to do with herself in a normal, bustling household, but Sam's relatives all seemed to be cut from the same cloth as he was - warm and funny and utterly welcoming.

It was one of those jam-packed Thanksgivings. Every chair in the house was brought out and shoved in around the assortment of card tables set on either end of the dining room table to extend its length. It took three tablecloths to cover the collection from end to end, and nobody's silverware matched - and none of that mattered in the least.

Peggy and Steve ended up sitting on the piano bench, which was slightly too high. Peggy's plate was tilted across the gap between two card tables, and every time Steve shifted, his knees lifted the edge of the table an inch, but it all seemed part of the festivities. Sam's father said grace, and Sam's cousin carved the turkey with joking solemnity, and Peggy watched as her husband literally blossomed under the normality of it all, relaxing inch by inch and chuckling warmly at the antics of the younger Wilsons, who were eating olives off their fingers and flashing pearly teeth in gleeful laughter.

Sometimes she wondered what Steve would have been like if the army had never taken him. Cocking her head, she examined her husband as he took another helping of hominy. He would have made a good father, she was sure.

After dinner, Steve caught Sam's eye and tipped his head slightly toward the door. The three of them ended up in the garage, squished between the Wilson's second freezer and a minivan.

"You got another lead?" Sam asked, and Steve handed over some of the papers Peggy had retrieved from the base with the leftover Winter Soldier equipment.

"We think he was held here for a short time," Peggy explained as their friend leafed through the packet. "It's not much to go on, but we were hoping you might look into it."

Sam nodded, pulling a face at the picture of the twisted, dusty machinery. "Mm-hmm. That's some nasty-looking stuff, right there."

The man was a gem. Ever since the downfall of SHIELD, he had stuck by Steve Rogers, willingly hunting down dead end after dead end in an attempt to find the man who had almost killed them both. Sam probably didn't even have the faintest idea how much his freely offered assistance meant to the captain. Peggy could have hugged him for it.

"You know you don't have to do this," Steve pointed out.

Sam flipped the packet closed, folding it into quarters and jamming it in his back pocket. "Hey, man," he shrugged. "Any friend of yours is usually somebody worth knowing." Then a teasing glint crept into his eye. "Besides, that guy wrecked my car. I got a bone to pick with him."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Mrs. Wilson packed Peggy two heaping plates of leftovers, firmly ignoring the vague protests the agent dutifully murmured, and filled the empty pie dish with rolls. The pie itself had been completely eaten - color aside, Jarvis would be proud.

"I hate to think how much that man must eat," she tutted, shaking her head and swathing everything in plastic wrap. "He'll probably eat all of this just on the ride home."

It was the closest any of the Wilsons had come to mentioning Steve Rogers' identity as Captain America. Whether Sam had briefed them all beforehand, or they all simply possessed an uncommonly large amount of tact, Peggy wasn't sure - but the fact remained that the two of them had been treated quite naturally and that alone made them both feel more comfortable, as if they were members of the family instead of celebrity visitors under a spotlight.

It had been far too long, Peggy realized ruefully as she dried another plate, since either of them had spent much time around the ordinary, every-day, remarkable kind of people that the Avengers worked so hard to protect.

"Probably," she admitted, thinking of the captain's insatiable appetite. Perhaps she could hide one of the plates under the seat, save it for later.

Outside the window, Steve romped on the lawn with some of Sam's younger cousins, showing absolutely none of the sluggishness that one would expect from a man who had eaten as much potatoes and turkey and pie as he had. The children hung around his neck, clambered up his back, caught at his ankles, just as children had in England, in France, in Belgium. Peggy's lips curled up fondly; apparently some things never changed.

Mrs. WIlson's bustling paused as she followed Peggy's gaze out the window to where Sam, roaring mightily, had just joined the wrestling match.

"My Sam's a good boy," she said at last, fixing Peggy with a carefully judicious eye. "A good man. And he likes to help people."

Peggy wrung out her dishcloth. "He is," she told the shorter woman sincerely, "and he does. I can't tell you how much Steve and I value your son's friendship."

Mrs. Wilson observed her for a long moment. Then she nodded approvingly and peeled back the plastic wrap on both plates to add an extra scoop of cranberry sauce.

"Good," she said, and that was all - but somehow, Peggy felt like she had passed a much larger test.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"We need to talk to SHIELD," Peggy decided on the ride home. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper, crawling slowly as thousands of people tried to make the most of their holiday. Idly, she wondered why Howard had never capitalized on his idea of flying cars. "They've been hunting down the leftover Chitauri artifacts, haven't they?"

Steve was driving one-handed, his free hand tucked comfortably around hers, playing with the wedding ring on her finger. At her words he paused, glancing sideways as he thought her question over.

"You're thinking whoever stole the scepter might be interested in other Chitauri weapons," he realized. It was a good idea - both the scepter and the Chitauri had appeared on earth at the same time, and massive amounts of Chitauri technology had been among the things missing after SHIELD fell and the scepter vanished. "SHIELD almost certainly has a list of suspected black market traders we could trace, but I doubt they'd give it to us."

Peggy bit her lip and then dimpled mischievously. "Oh, don't worry about SHIELD, darling," she told him, squeezing her husband's hand. "I can handle them." Then she tilted her head, eyes dancing. "How do you think I would look in spectacles?"

Steve grinned, pulling his eyes from traffic to look at her. He knew Peggy better than anyone else on earth, and had a pretty good idea where she was going with this. "Beautiful," he told her simply, in all honesty. "They'd never know what hit them."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hi, folks!**

 **For those of you not from America: Thanksgiving Day is a November holiday commemorating the early Pilgrim settlers who came to America in the 1600s to achieve the freedom to worship and build their society as they saw fit. It is traditionally celebrated with a large meal and family gatherings, and is associated with the end of the harvest season. Canada celebrates it too; their holiday is in October.**

 **Oh, if the line about the spectacles sounds familiar, that's my mistake. It sneaked into one of the other chapters from an earlier draft, but I've since fixed it. Whoops.**

 **Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week!**

* * *

 **Guest: Thanks! Glad you like it.**

 **ChildofGod: Thank you for the encouragement. You have a good day too! FYI, I'm still thinking over those story prompts of yours (I know, I'm SO slow) and they're finally starting to come together in my head. Now I just have to write them down...**

 **A Guest and Fan: Yes, that's the kind of nightshirt I meant. Usually I imagine Steve wears pajamas, but Peggy probably got him the nightshirt, and he doesn't particularly mind wearing it because she got it for him. :) As for the number - well, I defy anybody to guess at this point. Mwahahaha.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

A crash from the common room and a yelp from Pepper made Steve Rogers jog up the last flight of stairs and burst through the door, eyes scanning for whatever had startled the very common-sense woman.

" _No_ , JARVIS," Tony was protesting. "Return the suit unit to the lab." He was standing in front of one of the mock-up Iron Junior suits, tapping briskly at the slim phone in his hand. "When I tell you to do something, I don't mean I want you to use a suit to do it with. You're supposed to be smarter than this - do I need to overhaul your servers again?"

Pepper was crouching at the far end of the couch, looking decidedly annoyed as she mopped up her spilled drink. Steve, sensing the annoyance was not aimed at him, came to her side and took the cloth from her hands. "What's the problem?" he asked cautiously in an undertone, beginning to clean up the mess himself.

With a sigh and a nod of thanks, Pepper sat back, balancing flawlessly on her heels. "It's those bots," she explained, fingers absently checking her hair. She was dressed for work, and the spilled drink had fortunately missed staining her outfit. "Tony asked JARVIS to make a note of something, and next thing I knew, that - thing," she waved a hand at the robot, "crashed through from the loft. This is the second time this week I've had that glass replaced."

Across the room, Tony finally gave up ordering the robot to move. Apparently something about the interface had gone wrong; he summoned his own suit and proceeded to drape the Iron Junior unit across his shoulder, not unlike the way Steve had not so long ago.

"That's not supposed to happen, is it?" asked Steve neutrally, watching as Iron Man clanked up the stairs, carrying the metal skeleton back to the lab. He had known two Starks in his day - father and son - and one thing he knew about both of them was that neither one tolerated failure.

"No." Pepper confessed, lips twisting a little in frustration. "No, it isn't. JARVIS still doesn't completely understand the line between when he needs to use a suit and when to handle the situation without one. Tony's been working the bugs out for a week now."

Nodding, Steve picked up the broken pieces of Pepper's glass and retreated to the small kitchenette to throw them away and wring out the sodden cloth. Pepper watched him for a minute.

"Where's Peggy, anyway?" she asked abruptly. "I haven't seen her all morning."

Steve suddenly became very involved in tidying up, wringing out the small towel until some of the threads audibly popped. "She might be sparring with Natasha," he answered carefully, keeping his eyes on his work.

Pepper smiled fondly across at her friend, the lingering annoyance beginning to fade.

"You really can't lie, can you?" she asked, and then laughed at his reddening ears.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy Carter walked briskly into the loading dock of the SHIELD base armed with a clipboard and a pair of glasses. It was a tried-and-true formula, and had always worked well for her. Things were a little harder these days, what with keycards and metal scanners and digital records and whatnot, but that didn't mean it was impossible.

The NYC SHIELD base had become the organization's default central location since the fall of the Triskelion and the helicarriers. As the liaison between the spy agency and the Avengers, Peggy Carter supposedly had free access to the base - but she was no idiot. The "free access" went only as far as they wanted, and then doors would become stuck, or the elevator would skip floors, or rooms would be "closed for cleaning" and people pretended they didn't notice her exasperation.

Hence the clipboard and glasses. Nobody expected the good old methods, these days.

Still, in case of emergency, Peggy carried her keycard in her pocket, though she had no intention of using it. If necessary, Natasha would swear she had been sparring with her at the tower all morning, and Peggy didn't want to leave a contradictory electronic trail behind her. Besides, she could take care of locked doors quite nicely on her own.

One of the keyed entrances was up ahead, leading from the loading dock into the maze of hallways that made up the SHIELD base. Thinking quickly, Peggy ducked into a nearby janitor's closet and helped herself, filling her arms with generic brown cardboard boxes full of paper towels before reemerging.

"Hold that door, please," she ordered in her most authoritarian form, hurrying forward with her clipboard propped on the top box, held in place with her chin - the perfect image of a harried agent transporting old files.

One of the agents who had just swiped his card turned to see her predicament, and set his foot in front of the sensor to keep the door open.

"Thank you," Peggy panted a little, hefting the boxes into a better position and stressing her American accent for all it was worth, flirting with her eyes. She was enjoying herself - it had been far too long since she'd done something like this, though she noticed her American accent had become decidedly more Brooklyn since her marriage. "One of those days, you know?"

"Oh, yeah," he answered, beaming down in what he evidently thought was a suave manner. Peggy dimpled brightly and let him open the next door for her too. Apparently agents hadn't changed much since the 1940's.

However unwittingly, he made Peggy's job incredibly easier, darting ahead to open every door she approached with confidence, apparently assuming that she wouldn't try to go through a door she didn't have clearance for. Only once did he offer to carry the boxes for her, but she fixed him with a laughingly stern eye. "It's above your level, Agent."

He was pleasant enough, but when he asked her out to dinner sometime, Peggy decided to end the conversation. It was getting a little too uncomfortable, and besides - she could tell from the color of his badge that they were nearing the end of the doors someone with his clearance level could open.

"Maybe later," she demurred, and left him with Clint's number as a joke, making a mental note to get JARVIS to record the call when he phoned. Tony would get a kick out of it. Then, ducking into an empty office suite (thank goodness for lunch breaks), she watched through the frosted glass until he left.

"Somebody's going to have to teach you the meaning of security, young man," she mused as his shadow disappeared down the corridor.

No wonder Hydra had managed to get such a foothold in her former organization - with this kind of incompetence, it was only remarkable that it had taken them so long.

Dropping the boxes in a convenient corner behind a printer, Peggy pocketed a box of paperclips and unscrewed a lightbulb from somebody's desk lamp, hefting it thoughtfully before slipping it into her pocket. Yes, these could come in handy. A lightbulb never hurt any situation.

With one more look out the door, Peggy set off down the hallway. She had a few more floors to go, and an office to find.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Jelly filled doughnuts were probably the best invention since flying cars - except possibly for the reverse-engineered Destroyer weapon - and nowhere in the world made them quite like the little hole-in-the-wall bakery down the street. Fortunately they had rebuilt after the Battle of New York, because things wouldn't be the same without a big box to start the work week off with.

Not that he'd had a chance to buy them for some time - flying around the world in pursuit of bad guys was keeping him pretty busy.

Balancing the precious box precariously in one hand, Phil Coulson punched in his code on the number pad by the handle - no newfangled keycard for his office - and swung the door open. Then he jolted to a stop and froze, eyebrows leaping up his face.

"You're going to drop your doughnuts if you're not careful," said the woman behind his desk, coolly looking up over the top of the top-secret documents she was reading. Behind her, his filing cabinet was open, and a couple bent paperclips stuck out of the lock.

Moving slowly, unable to take his eyes off her, Coulson carefully laid the box down and stepped into his office, closing the door behind him. The woman set the files down and reached out a hand.

"I suppose I ought to introduce myself, Agent Coulson," she began, and her handshake was very professional.

"I know who you are, Agent Carter." Coulson tried to look blasé, but couldn't help the sheer glee bubbling up the inside of his ribcage. "I'm a big - a big fan. I was at your wedding. With Captain Rogers. I mean, you were with Captain Rogers, I was in the back. Of the building." He snatched desperately at dignity and missed. "It was kind of awesome."

Peggy bit her lips so she wouldn't smile at the awkward introduction. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?" she asked instead, trying to move the conversation away from herself. She'd heard of the agent's supposed death, but Natasha had pointed her in this direction when the assassin learned what Peggy was trying to discover.

Coulson shrugged a little, trying to reclaim his usual attitude. "It's complicated. Didn't really take. Besides, so are you."

"Touche." Peggy did, indeed, understand all about people living longer than they were expected to.

"It's supposed to be a secret," Coulson continued. "I'd appreciate it if you kept it to yourself."

Peggy leaned forward in Coulson's chair, steepling her fingers, very much in control of the situation. "Interesting that you bring up secrets." She lifted a file from her lap and slid it across the table. It wasn't one of his; she had brought this one with her. "Tell me about your search for Loki's scepter and the Chitauri artifacts - and then tell me what you know about this."

"I can't do that," the agent shot back flatly, flipping through the papers inside. The man was good, Peggy would grant him that, but she knew better - she'd seen the barely perceptible surprise in the lift of his eyebrows. After all, he didn't know a single trick that she hadn't learned ages ago.

"Of course you can," she parried immediately. "I understand you're the man to talk to about things like this."

Coulson shrugged again. "And I can't tell you. Where did you hear about it?"

Peggy put her elbows on the table and laid out all her metaphorical cards for him to see. "Look, the Avengers are on the verge of breaking with SHIELD for good, and running their own investigation for Loki's scepter. They feel betrayed that you deliberately concealed the fact that it was missing. At the very least, Thor had a right to know."

Coulson's face betrayed nothing. Peggy continued, her eyes never wavering from his. "You've lost Steve's trust, you never had Stark's trust, and even Romanoff and Clint are starting to harbour doubts. We need proof that SHIELD is worth staying in touch with, or you will lose all of us."

The director took a seat on the other side of the desk, facing Peggy. "What do you want?" he finally asked. She nodded, satisfied.

"We want anything you have on the location of the scepter, and immediate access to any further information you uncover regarding either it or Chitauri technology. The scepter will be turned over to Thor upon discovery. Also," she gestured to the file still in the director's hands, "I want to know about that."

"Why do you want it?" Coulson was very direct. Peggy was just as quick.

"Insurance," she retorted. "You've hid it well; I know just enough to know it's big, and the last big thing you didn't tell the Avengers about nearly leveled this nation's capital and almost killed my husband. If our organizations are to work together, we need to have mutual trust."

Coulson thought about it a minute longer. "Okay," he finally said.

Peggy raised her eyebrows. She had expected more of a fight.

"I have a condition, though," Coulson added. "Two conditions. Don't tell Fury." He got to his feet and moved to a shelf by the door. Peggy watched him closely.

"Is that both of the conditions in one?" she finally inquired. He turned, holding something flat and square almost reverently between his hands.

"No," he admitted, and laid the object in front of Peggy on the desk. "This is the second condition. I was wondering if you would sign this."

Peggy looked down at the record album lying in front of her and very nearly choked.

"I am not putting my name on this drivel," she protested once she could speak. Coulson leaned against the edge of the desk and smiled mildly, offering her a marker. She could tell he was trying to act casual, but the delighted sparkle in his eyes gave him away.

"That's my condition," he repeated, almost apologetically. "And it wasn't too bad."

Peggy skewered him with a pointed look. Coulson backpedaled. "I mean, besides the blatant - it really had a - and sure, it got the stories all wrong and it didn't do you justice at all, but - I grew up listening to it. Nostalgia; the radio station used to rebroadcast recordings of old shows when I was a kid."

With a sigh of deep resignation, Peggy finally gave in, inscribing her name rather stiffly beneath the title of the album: _The Complete Collection of the Captain America Adventure Program 1944-1952._

"I don't suppose it ever got any better," she mused tartly, capping the marker with a decisive snap. "I can't believe they thought it worth recording."

Coulson beamed like a little boy as he reached for the album.

"It's mint," he pointed out. "Well, near mint. One of the corners got a little dented when the Triskelion fell. I still haven't completely forgiven the agent who dropped it."

As far as Peggy was concerned the entire show and every recording ever made of it, mint or otherwise, could have rested quite comfortably at the bottom of the Potomac for the rest of time, but she refrained from saying so. "About my information," she prompted instead, and settled back in his chair once more.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Coulson was as good as his word. By the time Peggy stood to go, he had given her all the information she had come for. Fury would not necessarily be pleased if he knew - the erstwhile director preferred to keep stray fingers out of his metaphorical pie, but the way Coulson saw it, who better to trust than one of the original founders of SHIELD? Technically, she outranked both of them, anyway.

"If you don't mind my asking," he began offhandedly as Peggy stepped neatly around his desk, "how did you get in?"

Peggy raised her eyebrows, slipping something small and silver into her inside pocket before tucking her folder tightly under her arm. "Your code wasn't hard to guess."

"One of my people is a hacker, and even she hasn't been able to figure it out," Coulson pressed. He'd had that code since his rookie year at SHIELD, and nobody had broken it yet. For Peggy Carter to be the one to figure it out - Phil wasn't sure if he was more thrilled or embarrassed.

Readjusting her spectacles over her nose, Peggy shrugged and swept up the additional files he had given her, adding them to her own. "He may be your hero," she reminded him, "but he's my husband and my teammate. There's not much I don't know about Steve Rogers."

Impressed, Coulson caught his breath, fully aware that his eyes shining despite himself. "Um, do you - you need me to usher you out? I'd be happy to show you around while you're here. You're - you're one of the main reasons we're here at all, you know - you and Cap."

Peggy reached into her other pocket and touched the lightbulb thoughtfully. She already had a planned escape route, and between the lightbulb and the leftover paperclips, she knew she'd have no problem. "I appreciate the offer, but there's no need," she decided crisply. "I'll find my own way. Good afternoon."

Then she was gone, leaving Coulson shaking his head in awe, her signature on the album the only sign she had actually been there. He hoped he had done right by telling her about the contents of her file - but if there was anybody he could trust with the information, he figured it would be be Agent Carter.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hey, everybody! Guess what? It's a special day…**

 **Happy Anniversary to me!**

 **It's been a year to the day since I posted the very first chapter of my very first fanfic on here, and I've been overwhelmed with all of your support and interest. You are all incredible people, and whether you've been reading my stories for the entire year, or just discovered me five minutes ago, I deeply appreciate you.**

 **So - in honor of this first year of fanfic, I've posted this chapter, which has been burning a hole in my pocket since halfway through** _ **Sarcophagus**_ **.**

 **Have a great day, everybody!**

* * *

 **For those of you who haven't seen the first season of** _ **Agent Carter**_ **(very minor, not-really-spoiler follows), the** _ **Captain America Adventure Show**_ **features briefly on the radio a few times, and drives Peggy absolutely nuts with the unrealistic and skewed narration. So of course, it's that album that Coulson asks her to sign. :)**

* * *

 **ChildofGod: I love the normal things too. And don't ever apologize for rereading - I'm delighted you think it's worth it.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Coulson's information regarding the Chitauri artifacts and dealers turned out to be invaluable. The scepter was still maddeningly elusive, but both Steve and Peggy were hopeful that the trail of alien technology would lead to it sooner or later. Surprisingly, out of all the Avengers, Thor agreed with them the most strongly.

"By itself, the scepter can cause great harm," he warned, shifting restlessly in his place beside the window, eyes fixed on the horizon. "But you people are curious, always seeking to try things beyond your comprehension, whatever the source. I dare not think what an inquiring mind could do with both."

As if drawn by an invisible string, every head in the room turned to Tony, who was nodding thoughtfully until he became aware of their eyes. Then he threw out his hands, bristling defensively. "What? Why are you all looking at me like that? I was just agreeing with Thunder Boy there."

As per the agent's request, Peggy hadn't told the Avengers who she'd got the information from, only saying that it was through a source Natasha had pointed her towards. She did tell Steve though, drawing him aside privately after the day's work was done. As the leader of their team, she felt he had a right to know.

"Anybody else alive that I should know about?" he asked after the initial surprise, running his hands through his hair with a sigh. He sounded bemused and more than a little exasperated, but Peggy couldn't miss the subtle way his shoulders relaxed. The captain carried so much guilt for each loss - it was nice to see a little of the burden lifted.

"Naturally. I expect General Patton to show up any day now," she teased lightly, reaching across, and won a grin from him as he folded her hand securely into his.

Clint popped his head in the door at that point, looking extremely confused and bristling in an oddly defensive manner as he held up his phone. "Does anybody know why some grunt-level SHIELD agent just called asking to speak to my daughter?"

Steve had to clear his throat hard to hide the inappropriate chuckle that rose up in his chest at the flash of surprise on Peggy's face before she tried to conceal it. She had forgotten all about leaving that eager SHIELD agent with Clint's number - and she'd never imagined the agent would assume the man answering the phone would be her father.

The archer visibly relaxed once she'd explained. Natasha, who had followed him in with a decidedly fierce expression, went blank-faced for a split second and then grinned dangerously. "Guess you sound like an old man over the phone, 'Daddy' Clint," she teased.

Clint stabbed a pointed finger at her face, eyebrows raised warningly before leaving the room. "Don't even start," he threatened - but Steve and Peggy could hear Nat laughing at him all the way down the hall.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

December in New York was cold - a wet, bone-deep cold laced with lights and the thrilling excitement of Steve and Peggy's first Christmas together in this new, post-war world.

Through some colossal good fortune, their enemies appeared to be taking a well-timed break. No illegal alien technology exchanged hands, no sudden attempts were made on anyone's life - even the stack of death threats that Pepper daily sorted through had shrunk.

They all knew it was just a matter of time.

Holidays didn't mean a thing to men who had world domination on their minds - their enemies were probably lying low and preparing for the next move in the game of strategy. Still, in between keeping an eye on the international black market and breaking up the occasional small ring of illegal arms dealers, the Avengers found time to celebrate. All of Stark's suits turned up wearing little red Santa hats one morning, Pepper decorated the main rooms, and even Bruce quietly draped a sprig of holly over one corner of his computer screen.

Tony himself went a more predictable route. Every doorway had a sprig of mistletoe tacked over it, most of them with cameras strategically pointed to capture any action that might happen. If he was trying to catch any of the Avengers in a compromising situation, it didn't work - Steve and Peggy adroitly managed to stay clear of every trap, and Natasha took pleasure in pulling down the mistletoe almost as fast as it went up.

Pepper did catch Thor, though - standing on her toes to kiss the startled alien on the cheek before explaining the tradition. Thor smiled politely, but afterwards examined the mistletoe for a long moment with something somber in his eyes.

"I swear those two don't kiss at all," Tony grumbled as he watched the camera feed of the captain and his wife steering clear of the mistletoe hanging above the refrigerator in the common kitchen. "Seriously, it's starting to worry me."

Bruce didn't say a word - only reached across and snapped off the monitor. The next day, Pepper made Tony take down all the mistletoe for good, going on and on about mythology and cultural sensitivity and workplace environment and - well, Tony didn't listen to all of it - but he did take the mistletoe down.

Clint especially seemed to get into the spirit of the season, gleefully coming back from shopping with an armload of gaily wrapped packages, which he promptly hid in his room. "Stuff," he responded, when Tony later tried to offhandedly ask about them. "Just stuff. Don't worry, Stark. I'm sure Santa has a nice lump of coal somewhere for you."

Thor brightened, passing through the room on his way to the gym. "Coal? What a magnificent gift, my friend. Your Santa must think very highly of you."

Tony stared after the alien as he left. "Wait, what? Is this another one of those alien-cultural-disconnect things? Does he even know what coal is?"

Peggy laughed, curling up on the end of the couch closest to the heater and trying not to shiver as she flexed her cold fingers. Something about poor circulation in the extremities, Bruce had said when she'd asked him about it - a common side-effect of frostbite, and apparently also being frozen for seventy years. "Speaking of the holiday, Tony, you seem rather in vogue."

Tony blinked, turned on a heel, and then yanked yet another Santa hat off the head of the Iron Junior unit he'd just been working on. Clint and Natasha kept sneaking them onto the robots' heads as fast as he could get rid of them. Peggy bit her lip to hide a smile at his annoyance, and changed the subject. "How many of those are you planning to make?"

Slightly mollified, Tony went back to the mass of wires he'd been untangling. "As many as we need to keep civilians out of trouble."

Peggy spread and rubbed her hands, trying to warm them. "You really need a new name for them," she pointed out. "Iron Junior sounds so - juvenile. Call it the Iron Legion."

"I am not calling them that," said Tony positively around the screwdriver in his mouth. "It's a terrible name. I like Stark Squad. Or Iron Peacekeepers."

Peggy shrugged carelessly and turned back to her papers, carefully concealing the amused dimples in her cheeks.

Two days later, Tony officially changed the name to 'Iron Legion.'

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The second week in December, Steve came home with a Christmas tree over his shoulder. It was green and fragrant, and scattered pine needles all over the floor as he wrestled it out of the elevator, much to Tony's annoyance.

"Sorry, Tony," Steve apologized, hoisting the tree back into a comfortable position on his shoulder and dodging the prickly branch that tried to stick him in the eye. "I'll come back and clean it up."

"Couldn't you have just got one that smells real and looks real and isn't a sticky fire hazard?" the billionaire demanded, standing well away from the bouncing greenery. "Pepper's got dozens - borrow one of hers."

Steve wasn't listening. He was looking past Tony with the expression he only ever got when Peggy had just come into the room. All the Avengers knew that expression by now - the soft, bright look in his eyes that made Pepper sigh contentedly and Natasha grin. Tony could joke all he liked about a torrid love affair between their resident spies, but everybody knew that the real lovebirds in the tower were Captain America and his intrepid partner.

"Since when have you ever cared about fire hazards, Tony?" Peggy demanded, addressing Tony but not taking her eyes off her husband. She had that _look_ too - warm and sweet and very, very aware of her lover's adoration.

Tony threw up his hands.

"You two are so gooey it's making me melt," he announced, and stalked out of the room mumbling something under his breath about super soldiers carrying trees like they were nothing and giving people feelings.

Neither one watched him go. They were too busy looking at each other.

At last, Steve hefted the tree a little. "For Christmas?" he explained, though it was almost a question. "I thought – now that we're a family, we might want our own tree."

Peggy looked him head to toe, eyes dancing, and that one comprehensive glance was enough. They had never needed words to express their feelings.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Pepper gladly loaned them some tinsel and a string of lights from the leftover bundle of decorations for the corporate levels of the tower. Steve, as it turned out, had a few ornaments of his own that he'd picked up, trying to celebrate past Christmases in this new time.

"I didn't really have much of a tree," he confessed, pulling the shoebox marked _Decorations_ out of the top of his closet. "Found a little plastic one in a trash can - seemed too extravagant to get a good one for just me."

Peggy sorted through the small box, untangling the hooks made of bent paperclips and laying the ornaments out on the table as Steve wrestled with the string of lights. Her throat tightened a little as she imagined her husband gamely trying to forge a semblance of familiarity in a world where he felt so desperately alone.

"My mother loved decorating," she volunteered suddenly. She hadn't meant to say it, but handling these freely-shared tokens from his life made her want to give something as well. Steve looked up with interest. There was still so much they didn't know about each other, despite all their time together. "We'll have to find some holly for the mantelpiece before Christmas; she always had holly."

Despite the tinsel and the lights and Steve's handful of ornaments, the tree still looked rather barren once it was finished. Peggy stood for some minutes, tapping her mouth with a forefinger and watching as Steve meticulously adjusted the last few bulbs. Apparently the artist in him wanted everything to be perfect.

"We need to get a star," he pointed out, retreating to stand by her and examining the tree with a critical eye.

Peggy arched an eyebrow. "My family always had an angel for the top of the tree."

Steve's eyes and voice were very warm. "Sure, but I already have an angel."

It was sweet – one of those endearing things that he managed to say sometimes, and Peggy dimpled, settling willingly into the circle of his arms as he buried his smile in her hair for a long, tender moment.

The tree might be sparse, and their decorations few and far between – but they were together, and that alone made this holiday season wonderful.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The week before Christmas, Clint and Natasha packed up and headed out of town for the holiday. Tony waggled his eyebrows and made salacious comments until Natasha lost her patience and twisted his arm up behind his back, whispering inaudible threats into his ear until he paled dramatically.

"When can I expect you two back?" Steve asked as Natasha finally let the billionaire go and sauntered casually over as though nothing had happened.

Clint shrugged, completely ignoring the cell phone Steve could hear buzzing in his pocket. The archer was taking an unusually large bag with him, compared to the small duffle he usually travelled with. The captain could have sworn he saw a stray piece of curling ribbon sticking out at one end, but before he could look closer, Clint had tucked it away. "New Years," the archer replied, the answer almost a question itself. "I think. We'll be in touch."

Steve stood near the window and watched the archer and assassin push out through the main doors of the building. Romanoff hailed a taxi while Clint finally pulled out his phone and answered. On the rare occasions the two of them took off like this, they never took Tony up on his standing offer of a car.

Everybody knew Stark had tracers in most of his equipment.

"Where do you suppose they're going?" Peggy asked as their friends heaved their bags into the trunk and disappeared into the morning traffic.

Tony scoffed, bouncing on his toes and gingerly massaging his chest. "You kidding? It's a torrid secret love affair between two super hot spies - probably Dubai or something."

Peggy threw him a very skeptical look, but refrained from commenting. Instead, she shared a concerned frown with her husband behind Tony's back. They both knew Starks well enough to understand that Tony wouldn't be showing any discomfort unless he was in serious pain. Perhaps Natasha had wrenched something when she'd manhandled him.

"Spar a little easier with him next time," Peggy cautioned the captain later. "He's not exactly a spring chicken."

"Neither am I," Steve pointed out, feigning offence, and she smacked his shoulder.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

On Christmas Eve, Steve contrived to get his hands on a sprig of mistletoe, smuggling it home in his pocket. Peggy laughed at him when she caught him wiring it to their ceiling light fixture and he shrugged, caught in a mix of pleased awkwardness that she found quite adorable.

"It's Christmas," he defended himself. "And, you know - mistletoe. Makes me think of you."

Peggy didn't laugh again, caught back briefly to a battle-riddled, mistletoe-laden orchard, the teasing of a lost friend, and the first hesitant brush of her captain's lips across her cheek. Instead, she crossed the floor and met him in a soft, slow kiss, sliding her arms around his neck even as his hands anchored securely at her waist.

"You do realize, darling," she reminded him at last, drawing back a little, "that it isn't quite Christmas yet?"

He looked down at her with something like reverent awe in his eyes even as a teasing grin tugged at his lips. "Yeah," he rasped, and then cleared his throat. "Might as well practice, though. I'd hate to disappoint my wife on Christmas day."

Peggy kissed him again, rather thoroughly – in the name of practice, of course – and then slipped out of his arms at the sight of a green tangle on their kitchen table.

"Oh, Steve..."

It was holly - shining, pointed leaves with red berries the color of the new sweater she knew he'd painstakingly wrapped in the biggest box under their tree. Steve Rogers was not a spy and never would be, but he had managed to completely surprise her with this little reminder of the past.

He grinned at her delighted pleasure, hands shoved deep in his pockets, shrugging a little. "Merry Christmas?" he offered, and she remembered all over again why she had lost her heart to this stubborn, endearing young man.

Together they arranged it on the mantlepiece, earning several painful jabs from the prickly leaves, and then settled down to string popcorn in an attempt to make their tree look a little more decorated. Despite all their best intentions, neither one had remembered to buy more ornaments.

"Peggy," Steve said later. They had long since draped the lengthy popcorn strands across the tree's branches, and now sat close together on the floor, backs against the couch as they ate the leftover popcorn and scrutinized the general appearance of their first Christmas tree. Christmas Day itself would be very busy, filled with church in the morning and obligatory appearances at various hospitals and charities after that, but tonight was theirs.

Peggy shifted against his side, tipping her head up to look at him. "Mmm?"

He looked down into her face, breathless at her beauty, trying to memorize the way the flickering firelight and twinkling Christmas lights reflected in her dark eyes. She was finally starting to get back a little weight again, after being under the weather for so long, and it relieved him immensely.

"Thanks for taking a chance on me. Marrying me, all this." Steve gestured vaguely, trying to take in the whole tower and all the occupants. "I know it's not the easiest thing in the world."

Peggy set her glass of eggnog down and drew away a little, turning to more fully face him. "I imagined you'd be worth the risk," she told him playfully, her hands finding his, entwining and holding tight. Then she sobered a little, face soft and earnest in the warm light. "Besides, I found the right partner."

Steve's heart leaped and stuttered in his chest. Then the clock struck midnight - and Peggy just had enough time to wonder at the mischievous light that sprung into his eyes before he wound a long arm around her waist and pulled her into his lap.

"Steve," she protested, laughing despite herself as he scooted backwards across the floor, still holding her securely. "What on earth do you think you're doing?"

The captain's jaw was set stubbornly. He always had been incurably dramatic. "If I'm going to kiss my wife on Christmas Day," he told her very seriously as he finally stopped beneath the mistletoe, "you can bet I'm going to do it properly."

He kissed her then, yearningly, and Peggy slid her fingers through his hair and kissed him back with all her soul.

"Happy Christmas, Captain," she whispered at last, and he caught her more closely against his racing heart and kissed her again.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hi, folks.**

 **It is my policy not to apologize in my notes for my writing or timing. That being said, I am deeply regretful that it's taken me this long to get this chapter up. Life happened, and some new opportunities, and then a week where I lost access to the file and had to redo the chapter almost entirely from scratch - I could go on, but I won't.**

 **Suffice it to say, that I've worked on this thing on a train, in several cars across two states, in a score of meetings pulled up beside my notes, and in bed before falling asleep, trying to get it to you. (By the way, now I'm curious. What are the strangest circumstances you've ever written under?)**

 **And it** _ **won't**_ **take me this long to give you the next chapter. You all are the greatest people ever. Have a good week!**

 **Oh - if you were confused by Thor's reaction to mistletoe, it's the plant that Loki made a dart from to kill Thor's brother Baldur, because it was the one plant that didn't promise to protect him. The story is found in the** _ **Prose Edda**_ **manuscript.**

* * *

 **A Guest and Fan: Thank you! I've been sitting on that Coulson-meets-Peggy idea for a while now, and it was fun to do.**

 **ChildofGod: Thanks! And yes - that radio program was** _ **dreadful**_ **. Which is a shame, because I enjoy listening to radio shows and they're not nearly that bad. (Although admittedly, my favorites are from the 1950's, so maybe they'd improved by then.) Oh, and I've finally ****started writing down the story from your first prompt and already nearly broken my own heart with the feels. :D**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy started out the new year in grand fashion by being sick again.

Steve sat on the bathroom floor beside her, glass of water in hand, waiting patiently. When he'd been unable to keep food down as a child, his mother used to rub his back, but Peggy tended to get irritable when she felt vulnerable and he didn't want to take any chances - not when he knew there was a loaded pistol hidden in the towel cabinet in case of emergencies.

At last, she sat back next to him and accepted the water, rinsing out her mouth and then sipping slowly as he gently brushed the hair out of her face.

"You okay now?" he asked. His forehead was furrowed, blue eyes betraying his concern for her. Oddly enough, Peggy couldn't help smiling faintly at the sight, despite feeling cross and ill. Sometimes she could scarcely believe that he was still alive - that they were actually married. Impossibly, improbably, she had ended up here, seventy years in the future, with Steve Rogers smoothing back her hair and offering her water on a bathroom floor in New York City.

"Mmm," Peggy mumbled, and considered her stomach carefully before she dared move enough to lean her head on his shoulder, nursing her glass. "Give me a minute." She was chilly, shivering on the cold tile until Steve wrapped his arms around her - gingerly, in case she was going to bite his head off - and pulled her into his lap. Tucking her toes up into the hem of her robe, Peggy leaned into him and tried a little more water.

"I really think you should see Banner about this," Steve finally ventured. She shook her head against his chest, but he persisted. "This isn't getting any better, Peg. You're cold almost all the time, sick to your stomach, worn out…"

Peggy sighed heavily. She considered pulling away indignantly, but he was so warm. "I'm all right, Steve."

He tightened his arms around her, rocking back and forth just slightly, and she let her eyes flutter shut. A very small part of her protested being treated like a child, but she firmly told it to mind its own business. She was an independent woman; she could make her own decisions, and she chose to let him baby her. Before Steve, nobody had looked after her when she was sick in a very long time.

"I'm just worried," he eventually confessed into her hair, voice low enough that she could feel the rumble of it in his chest almost more distinctly than she could hear it. "I'm scared to death that something is wrong - that my blood is hurting you, or it's failing over time."

It was the first time Steve had actually said the words out loud. For some time though, the nagging fear had weighed cold and heavy on his heart. Peggy tried to look up at him, but he turned his head away, not wanting her to see whatever emotion was on his face.

"Steve."

He relented, letting her pull his head back around. Her eyes were clear, and he tried to trust the absolute surety in her gaze. "Steve, how long did it take you to get back to normal after waking up?"

"Couple months," he answered slowly, knowing where she was going with the conversation. Recovering from being frozen for seventy years was no joke, either physically or mentally. Even now, he still felt the cold on chilly days more keenly than he would admit, still felt panicked and sick when the ice in his drink bumped up unexpectedly against his lips.

"All right, just a few months," Some color was coming back into her face as Peggy earnestly argued. "But you had pure serum incorporated into your genetic code long before you froze." Her hand was soft against his cheek, and his heart turned over with renewed realization of his love for her as she continued, fixing her eyes on his. "I never had that. Your blood saved my life, but it stands to reason that I'll simply take a little longer."

"So you're not gonna talk to Banner?" Steve had always been a stubborn man, and Peggy sighed a little, closing her eyes and readjusting her head against his collarbone. She was equally as obstinate.

"Absolutely not. I'll be all right in two seconds."

They stayed as they were, huddled on the bathroom floor, until their alarm clock went off in the other room.

"JARVIS?" Steve raised his voice without moving from his place on the floor, and after a moment the alarm clicked off.

"Lazy boy," she scolded playfully, and he hummed in agreement, cuddling his cheek against her hair. Peggy enjoyed his attention for another minute before pulling away, sitting up with a groan. "Weren't you going to watch the launch?"

He pinned her with a serious eye. "You'll be okay if I go?"

Peggy slung a washcloth at his head, and he ducked, grinning despite his concern. "I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much."

"I know." Steve got to his feet and gave her a hand up, watching her carefully until they both decided her stomach was going to behave. "Believe me, I know," he repeated. "Doesn't stop me from wanting to look out for you, though."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Okay, last-minute check," Tony Stark announced, fingers flying across the screens. Ever since their conversation about his neuropathy, he had ignored the issue entirely, pushing forward on his pet projects. This one in particular had claimed a great deal of his time. It was a sort of Christmas present in a way, delayed into January while the approvals passed and the specifications were finalized.

Bruce was just surprised the inventor hadn't decided to tie a red bow and candy canes on the nose of the rocket in celebration of the belated holiday.

This specific project was very important to him. Taking a deep breath, he looked around at the clean, shining lab, and couldn't help the tentative contentment that bubbled up somewhere under his heart.

Life had been different for him ever since the Chitauri had attacked New York City.

Before that whole debacle, Bruce had been very alone, terrified of himself, resigned to a life without meaningful contact with other people. Afterwards though, somewhere in between waking up disoriented in a rubble-filled street and eating shawarma in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, Tony had managed to sweep Bruce into his life without so much as a hint of discomfort.

" _This is Dr. Banner,"_ Tony had announced, sailing into the lobby of Stark Tower and around a pile of rubble to kiss the tall redhead beside what had once been the main desk. " _He's going to be staying for a week or something. Do we have a room that his alter ego won't try to smash? Let's call an interior designer. I'm thinking muted greens, maybe a dash of purple."_

The week had never ended - and slowly, Bruce realized that he had an actual place in the world. There was a shelf for his books, clothes that he could reasonably hope to wear more than once, and a lab with everything he could want.

It was terrifying, in a good kind of way.

Then Hydra showed up, curled in the heart of SHIELD, and he found out his name had been on the Project Insight list.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _Part of him wondered if it would have worked. Could the Other Guy protect him from a bullet neither one knew was coming? Still, he knew the answer, somewhere deep in his heart. He would have Hulked out, and in his rage, destroyed the entire tower. Tony would have been dead already - he'd been on the Insight list too, but Pepper hadn't, and Bruce knew he wouldn't be able to go on if he killed the woman who had been so kind to him._

 _That was the day he left the tower. He didn't take anything but an umbrella - his books deserved a home, even if he couldn't stay with them. Bruce quietly walked down to street level, picked a direction, and started walking. Opening the umbrella, he held it low over his head, shielding his face so JARVIS couldn't track him via facial recognition._

 _He walked for hours, choosing directions almost at random, as long as they led away from the center of town. He had to get away from his friends - he was a danger to them. Even the walls of Stark's tower weren't enough to keep them safe; not as long as he was inside._

 _Bruce was so distracted with his own thoughts that it took a while to realize somebody was walking next to him._

" _Hey," said Tony Stark._

 _Blinking, Bruce stared at him for a minute. The billionaire was wearing a grease-stained shirt, and his hair was sticking up all over as though he had left the tower in a hurry._

 _Tony fidgeted a little under the scrutiny. "Mind if I walk the same direction as you? Completely coincidentally, of course."_

 _Bruce started walking again. "How did you find me?" he asked eventually._

 _Tony preened. "I'm a genius," he announced. Bruce shot him a sideways glance, and the billionaire deflated. "And I have a very good chauffeur. Happy's a block over, cruising."_

 _It took a while, but eventually Tony pried the whole story out of Bruce. It felt better - lighter, somehow, to tell him. They walked in silence then, which was unusual for Tony Stark._

" _Look," said Tony finally. "I get it, kind of. But I need my science buddy. So let's come up with something that'll be around to help if we need it. You know, like Project Insight, only nonlethal. Eye in the sky, whatever."_

" _The helicarriers are down," said Bruce, but Tony shook his head, pausing to lean against a street sign. He hadn't been out and about much since his recent surgery to remove the arc reactor. This was the first time Bruce had seen him walk so far without a rest, and he felt overwhelmingly guilty at the thought that Tony was doing it for him._

" _Who needs a sub-orbital monitoring system when you can have a satellite?" Stark asked, waving a hand airily. "I've got four. No, five. I can't remember. Anyway, it could work. Come back home and help me figure it out."_

 _Home._

 _Bruce Banner wasn't quite strong enough to resist that word._

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Okay, okay," Tony rubbed his hands together. "Everybody ready?"

Bruce spun around in his chair and activated the screen, flipping through the schematics one more time before nodding to Stark. He hoped this would work. Tony was pretty sure it would, but he wasn't as confident. He couldn't afford to be.

"Where's Steve?" he asked, instead of voicing his worries. The captain had wanted to be there - despite having met aliens, seen interdimensional portals, and handled otherworldly artifacts, he was still deeply intrigued by the idea that man had put satellites in orbit and walked on the moon.

"He's late," Tony started, beginning to rub his chest and then stopping himself with a jerk as he saw Bruce watching. "Our window is passing."

Steve practically burst into the room then, catching himself on the end of the table. "I'm here," he announced unnecessarily. "Sorry."

Tony turned back to his screen with a flourish. "All right, project _Veronica_ is a go," he told JARVIS, and the three men watched the feed silently. Somewhere out in California, a rocket lifted off a private launchpad, arcing gracefully into space. In the nose rested a very special satellite, the result of months of careful planning. If anyone cared to look at the records, it would be listed as STARKSAT 5, a communications and imaging satellite owned by Stark Industries.

There were only a handful of people in the world who knew what else it could do.

Bruce leaned back in his chair with a sigh, watching the projected line as the rocket inched closer to the one hundred mile mark, and the first stage dropped off, propulsion spent. For the first time in years, he suddenly had a sense of security. Yes, he still needed to learn to live with the monster inside of him, but the constant terror of losing control and wreaking havoc weighed lighter on his shoulders. If he did snap; if Natasha couldn't reach him, then any one of the team could make a simple call. If this worked, then the Hulk could be secured and contained.

And if the containment didn't work - which Tony laughed at because _he_ had made it, so of course it would work - then there was the specially enhanced suit which could hopefully beat the Hulk into submission. It was a last resort, but it was a very comforting one.

"You okay, big guy?" Tony was watching him closely. Bruce ran both hands through his hair and thought about the question.

"Yeah," he realized, vaguely surprised. "I think I am."

Tony nodded, watching the simulation on the screen as the second stage of the rocket fell away. "Just curious," he suddenly asked, "Why _Veronica_? Old girlfriend, new girlfriend - sister? Do you have a sister?"

Doctor Banner closed his eyes and remembered, plain as day, the moment he had given in. The lower buildings and uneven pavement of Brooklyn, and the long walk down Veronica Place. It was on that street that Tony had convinced him that maybe there was a way around this - a way where he could have his friends and protect them from himself at the same time.

"Good associations," he said, and left it at that.

On the screen, the satellite reached one hundred miles and smoothly transitioned into apogee orbit. Within a few hours, her boosters would fire, settling her into a geosynchronous orbit around the earth.

Speaking of which…

Bruce spun around in his chair. "Tony?"

Stark finished giving one of his robotic arms a high five. "Uh-huh?"

He hated asking for things. "Can I - um, borrow the jet?"

Tony shot him a casually analytical look. At the other end of the room, Steve's eyes flickered over before he turned back toward a screen, giving them the illusion of privacy. They all knew his enhanced hearing could pick up any voices near him, and he always did his best not to intrude in private conversations.

"As long as you're coming back with it," Stark answered, carefully keeping any emotion out of his voice. "What's up? Need a little Tibetan holiday? You know, mountain top, contemplating navels or whatever it is you do."

"Korea, actually." Bruce ignored Tony's not-so-transparent attempt at finding out what he was planning. He would fill Steve in with more details later - as their captain, he needed to be aware of his team's location - but Stark didn't need to know just yet. "Thanks."

Tony's interest was piqued. "Korea? What's in Korea? I mean, besides Hyundai and really good kimchi."

Bruce gave one last look to the blinking monitor, _Veronica_ securely plodding along the curve of her orbit.

"Um, a thing," he answered distractedly, fingering a crumpled napkin in his pocket. He would need to put it back in one of his books before he lost it. "I have a thing. Maybe."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **... and I'm BACK! I kid you not - I've thought of you people practically every day, but life has been just too busy, so I'm grateful for your patience and every single one of your reviews. Things have calmed down now, and I should be able to return to a more regular posting and writing schedule.**

 **Fun fact - There is a street called Veronica Place in Brooklyn.**

* * *

 **Guest: So, so glad this story is working for you! Yeah, Daddy Clint with his daughter's first boyfriend would be terrifying. :) I'm pretty sure I read a fic once where he's ominously cleaning his bow in the front room when his daughter's first date comes over! As for Tony - well, hopefully things will look up soon.**

 **ChildofGod: Thank you so much for your lovely message, and for your second, more recent one on my other story. I actually was sick and stressed when I got it, and it made my day. Thank you again!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Good morning, Captain." Pepper Potts stepped briskly through the main lounge of the Avengers' living space, fingers tapping at the screen in her hand. "I need your signature right here - and here - and there. Don't - yes, that one."

Steve drew his eyebrows together, putting down the letter he was writing to focus on the tablet she'd handed him. It was one of his habits, catching up on his correspondence every morning and replying to as many of his fan letters as he could, especially the ones from children. There was a whole pile of childishly scrawled cards at his elbow, many bearing grubby fingerprints, and Pepper had seen one or two of the most endearing drawings make it onto his refrigerator.

"What's this?" he asked, scrolling through the fine print, eyes flickering across the lines.

Pepper boosted herself up onto the edge of the table, looking over his shoulder. "That one is our part of the airspace agreement with the city regarding the Iron Legion. The other two are our assurances that the robots won't cause more than incidental damage to civilians in case of an attack."

Steve glanced up. "And we're sure they won't?"

The CEO smiled halfheartedly as she shook her head. It wasn't exactly a secret that she was not a proponent of this whole Iron Legion scheme. "Tony's sure," she pointed out helpfully, "and JARVIS will have complete control of the suits."

"If I may," JARVIS's voice broke in. "I have had extensive experience backing Mr. Stark in battle. I have an excellent record of civilian safety."

Nodding, the captain looked back down before tapping the screen to add his signature to the airspace agreement before handing it back. "I'd like some further testing before I sign the other two," he explained. "No offense, JARVIS."

"None taken, Captain."

Pepper slipped the tablet back into its case after he had finished, but she didn't leave. "Is Peggy feeling any better today?"

Steve took his time smoothing down a crumpled crayon drawing of a stick figure wielding what might possibly be a shield three times its size, and neutrally answered Pepper's question with one of his own. "Did she say she wasn't feeling well?"

It was something the two of them were very careful about, discussing Peggy's health. Up to this point, Bruce Banner had been more than competent enough to take care of potential problems, but SHIELD scientists were eager to get their paws on Peggy Carter, and any hint of illness would be a chink in her proverbial armor.

Pepper tilted her head and treated Steve to a very sweet, professional smile. "I didn't get to where I am without learning how to notice things," she pointed out. "Besides, last time we went out to lunch, she wouldn't touch anything besides tea and soup."

Steve hesitated, but there wasn't really any point. This was Pepper, not a SHIELD flunky. "She's got some kind of stomach flu," he confessed at last. "Either that, or something we're eating is making her sick." He decided to leave out his own fears about the effects of the serum on his wife's body. That would be something to talk to Bruce about once he'd returned from his trip to Korea, if the situation continued.

The CEO seemed to deflate a little at his answer, but nodded thoughtfully. "Could be a food allergy," she offered. "I have those, although I don't get nauseous. Usually hives. Maybe it's some kind of additive you didn't have in the '40's. I'll have JARVIS put in an order for more organic foods, if you like."

"I bet she's pregnant."

The unexpected voice startled both Steve and Pepper, drawing their attention toward the other end of the lounge, where Tony Stark was pulling himself out from the repair bay in the floor, welding mask shoved back on his head. During Bruce's absence, he had been obsessively refitting it for his troop of Iron Legion bots, and neither one had known he was there.

Pepper quickly looked at Steve with a raised eyebrow, but the captain shook his head. "She's not pregnant, Stark."

Tony rubbed his chest thoughtfully, somehow managing to convey complete disbelief. "And you know that - how? Women don't tell guys everything, you know."

"Leave it, Stark." Steve's voice suddenly became very serious, very quickly. Pepper's head came up, eyes wide with realization.

"Ah, Tony," she started, but the billionaire wasn't listening.

"I bet she is," he crowed cheerfully. "I call godfather."

"Tony, leave him alone." Pepper's firmest voice snapped through the air like a whip. Stark glanced at her, puzzled, and Steve sighed, rubbing at his forehead.

"We can't have kids," he explained softly, shrugging almost apologetically.

Tony stared. "Oh," he said, and suddenly sounded awkward. Tony Stark was not good at feelings. "Is it because she was frozen? There are doctors that might - I mean, I'm sure Pepper can line you guys up with somebody." He was babbling, and Steve finally gave in.

"It's not because of Peggy," he said, voice very low, staring at a spot on the counter. Sure, since she'd been revived Peggy's body had been thrown off in ways that the man from the 1940's was still getting used to discussing with his wife without turning beet-red. He wasn't about to try to explain that to his friends though.

The real reason was more pertinent, easier for the others to understand.

"It's because in 1943 I stepped into the Project Rebirth capsule of my own free will, and got bombarded with intense radiation for sixty seconds."

The room fell silent, the muffled whirring of Tony's robots the only sound that broke the sudden hush. Steve looked up to see tender sympathy in Pepper's face and a dawning comprehension in Tony's. Clearing his throat, he tried to explain further. "Doctor Erskine said - well, there was always a question as to whether or not I'd be able to - be a father after that," he finished quietly.

" _I vant to make sure you understand." The doctor's eyes were very serious behind his glasses. "No little children in your future, no little Rogerses running around?"_

 _The barrel of the pen was smooth between Steve's fingers as he paused. Across the table, Howard Stark squirmed in his seat, industriously beginning to disassemble the stapler and looking anywhere but at the young man who was about to sign away his body to the government. Peggy sat straight in her chair beside the inventor, face unreadable, but something in his chest warmed and fluttered when he met her eyes._

 _Steve had always wistfully looked forward to a family; kids he could teach everything he knew, a partner who would share his life - but he wasn't exactly a fool. Even if he found the right woman and persuaded her to marry him, he knew he wouldn't live long enough to raise a family. He would work himself to death trying to do right by them, until his skipping heart or tired lungs gave out and he left a widow and orphans behind, just like his own father had. And anyway, with his medical history there was no guarantee he'd be able to father children in the first place - he'd had the mumps when he was seventeen, after all._

 _Now he had a chance - a way for him to serve his country, do his part to win the war, give his fellow soldiers a better chance of returning home to their own families. At least this way he would be able to help other people, do something right._

" _I understand," he said at last, straightening resolutely. His hand tightened around the pen, and he bent to sign the line on the paper._

 _Every guy had to make a sacrifice. Perhaps this was his._

They still hoped for a family, of course. They had talked about adoption a little, toyed with different ideas. Steve could think of nothing he would like better than to hold a little child that belonged to both of them - and he'd seen the way Peggy looked at him when he played with young fans in Central Park and knew she felt the same.

It was hard some days, knowing that there would never be a little girl with Peggy's curls or a boy with Steve's eyes. All things considered though, it was nothing short of a miracle that they were both alive and together. Once they had their new life figured out it would be time to look more in depth at their potential options.

Silence reigned in the lounge area for a long moment. Then Steve straightened his shoulders. "Anyway," he took a deep breath as if to clear the air. "Thanks for the advice, Pepper. Stark, be seeing you around."

He headed for the door, but Tony stopped him. "Look, Cap," he started, hunting briefly for words, trying to run his hand through his hair and only succeeding in nearly dislodging the welding mask perched on the back of his head. "You ever want to adopt, I'll put in a good word with the agencies. They always need funding anyway."

Steve nodded his thanks, touched more than he would let on. Tony stared after him as the doors closed. Pepper frowned as she noticed he was rubbing his chest again.

"Life isn't fair," Tony finally growled, spinning back to his work and gesturing dangerously with the welding gun. "Guys like Captain America would give their soul to be a dad, and other people sell their babies on the black market. This world is messed up."

Pepper couldn't have agreed more.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Verily, you guys - I swear my household hath been stricken by a plague. Well, actually a virus knocked us flat since well before Christmas. I was going to get so much updating done, but it's literally taken everything we had just to stagger through our most vital responsibilities. However, the show is over now, and I'm finally feeling more like a human being, so hopefully I'll be a little bit more dependable! :)**

 **This chapter's medical stuff: Radiation does affect the human reproductive system, and soldiers in WWII who were exposed to experimental radiation were informed it was unlikely they would have children. During Steve's youth it was known that if a young man had the mumps after puberty, sterility was a possible side-effect. Fortunately, modern steroids and vaccination have made it fairly rare today. Infertility can be a deeply painful issue to those affected by it. I've based this chapter off the experiences of several people in my life, and done my best to treat it sensitively.**

 **As per the medical stuff throughout this story - I may have said this before, but if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me to back up anything I write. Every medical condition in this story has been experienced by somebody I know personally, or I have researched it** _ **extensively**_ **, or it's featured in a Marvel movie and therefore canon.**

 **Anyway, a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! I hope you know how much I appreciate you. Y'all are the best ever.**

* * *

 **ChildofGod: Thanks, hon. I'm sure I used up every last bit of those prayers, and I'm much better now. :) Hope you had a lovely Christmas season!**

 **A Guest and Fan: Thank you so much for taking the time to review! I don't care if it's late - I'm just super grateful to get one at all. :) It's fun to hear what you're thinking.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Steve pulled the last dummy upright and turned to face Thor again. "Okay, let's go through that one more time."

Thor beamed, a flash of white teeth splitting his face before he settled into a sparring position. His mode of fighting was subtly different from anything Steve had studied under SHIELD, and the sheer alien quality of it tended to throw the others off at times. Over the last couple weeks, they had spent a great deal of time working with each other, trying to ensure that things would run smoothly in an actual combat situation.

"Very well, Captain - ready yourself." Thor liked fighting with the captain. Neither Clint nor Natasha possessed enough strength to meet him on equal grounds, and Stark preferred to fight with blasts from his reactors. Steve could meet him with sheer muscle, more the style he was used to.

Steve shifted his feet, bracing his forearms behind his shield, and tucking his chin. The bullet wound in his back was completely healed, which was fortunate, since this would have been rather painful otherwise. "Okay, go."

Thor leaped, bringing down the hammer as Steve thrust up with the shield. The resulting shockwave was poorly aimed, sending only half the dummies to the floor, as well as a rack of weights. Tony, just coming in through the doors of the gym, was swept off of his feet and landed hard on his back.

"Ow," he grumbled, clambering slowly up as Steve came across the floor to make sure he was all right. Waving away the proffered hand, he leaned an elbow against the wall, rubbing his chest. "Wow, I need to start wearing the suit 24/7."

Sure that his friend was all right, the captain returned to the sparring floor, only to see Thor hefting his hammer experimentally, thoughtful lines appearing in his forehead. "Bowl me your shield," the alien prince suddenly said.

Steve lifted his eyebrows. "What, you getting hungry?"

"No, bowl it to me, as in your game of baseball," Thor insisted, and the captain finally understood. The alien had come with him a number of times to watch baseball games, and had become quite taken with the sport. Since Peggy's arrival, she had begun joining them and enjoyed complicating the process by teaching him the terms of cricket over Steve's increasingly indignant protests.

"Pitch," he corrected, poising himself to throw. "No matter what Peggy tells you, it's called pitching in America. Here goes."

He threw his shield, and Thor measured its approach with a practiced eye. The resulting swing was more enthusiastic than technical, but the hammer connected solidly with a great ringing sound, and the shield skimmed across the room, burying itself more than halfway into the padded wall a foot and a half from Tony's startled face.

Tony Stark always denied that he shrieked like a girl, but it was times like this that proved him wrong. Steve desperately hoped that one of the assassins or JARVIS had been in a position to record the sound for posterity.

"Gah!" Tony gasped. "What is wrong with you guys? You're like a couple of walking natural disaster zones."

"We are playing baseball," announced Thor as Steve apologized, yanking his shield out of the wall with some effort. "It is very good fun."

Tony adjusted his sunglasses and stared flatly over them for a minute. "I distinctly remember baseball being both incredibly boring and way less life-threatening."

Thor laughed easily. "You should join us; it is far better than you think. Of course, you could not wield my hammer, but you could don your suit and catch."

"Yeah, speaking of which," Tony zeroed in on the hammer swinging freely in Thor's hand. "When are you going to let me run tests on that thing? Mystery metal and all that."

"You may test it whenever you like," Thor offered grandly, a twinkle in his eye, "so long as you carry it to your laboratory yourself."

Tony stepped forward at once, rolling up his sleeves, but was interrupted by a sound at the door.

"Ah, Tony?" Bruce was in the doorway, a duffle bag in his hand. "Is this a bad time?"

Tony wheeled. "You just saved Thor from having his hammer handed to him, that's all." His voice lowered as he neared his friend. "What's up?"

Bruce shifted uncomfortably. "I - ah, wanted to introduce you to someone."

Steve frankly stared as a petite Asian woman stepped into the doorway next to Doctor Banner. Tony whistled.

"Brucie, you brought a girl home? I'm so proud of you." Ignoring Banner's sudden flush, he stepped forward, whipping his sunglasses off entirely. "Hi," he addressed the woman. "Tony Stark, billionaire. I'm his lab buddy. Break his heart, I'll break your hard drive."

Bruce was very red. "It's not like that, Tony," he interrupted. "This is an associate of mine, Doctor Helen Cho. We met a couple years back during a scientific retreat. She's a geneticist and neuroscientist specializing in molecular synthetic-organic interfaces."

Something about that last sentence must have been important, because Steve saw the instant Tony changed from his lighthearted facade to the single-minded inventor. "Really? Fascinating. Bruce, we'll use your lab - it's more set up for things like this."

They turned to leave, but Doctor Cho leaned in and asked Bruce something in a low voice. He immediately came around again. "Oh sure, sorry. Steve, Thor, this is Doctor Cho."

They both smiled and nodded, but Doctor Cho only had eyes for Thor. She had been staring at him since she had come into the room, and Steve discreetly turned his head to hide a grin at the look on her face as Thor shifted his hammer to offer her his hand, obliviously friendly. Out of all the Avengers, the alien prince was the most popular in Asian countries for some reason, and was the one most likely to get coerced into cheerfully posing for pictures with swarms of Asian tourists wherever they went.

"What are we waiting for?" demanded Tony, bouncing impatiently at the doors, and the doctor reluctantly followed Bruce out of the gym.

"She seems nice," Steve commented, planting his feet and bringing up his shield again. Thor raised his eyebrows and brought the hammer down harder than the time before. The shockwave rolled up the wall and momentarily flattened Clint's rope course against the ceiling.

"Not as nice as my Jane," he replied with a flash of white teeth, and Steve nodded, understanding completely. After all, he had never met a woman he liked better than Peggy.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Tony Stark didn't tell people things.

Well, he told Pepper things, and Pepper told those things to other people when she felt it was necessary. It was probably against something in her confidentiality contract, but since Pepper herself was the only one who would have been able to identify the exact clause, it was a moot point.

So for Tony to actively avoid the other residents of the tower - well, that just meant he had something on his mind that he didn't want to share.

For a week after Doctor Cho arrived in New York, Tony practically vanished. He spent all his spare time holed up in the labs with Bruce Banner and Helen Cho, and skipped out after every meeting he attended so quickly that even Steve couldn't catch him. Everyone knew something was up, but nobody could corner him long enough to find out what, and JARVIS became singularly unhelpful and taciturn when asked.

"It's like watching Howard all over again," Peggy pointed out, speaking around the stylus she held between her teeth as she flipped through Sam's latest email. Just because the Avengers had to focus on finding the scepter didn't mean either of them had completely given up on finding Bucky. Currently Sam Wilson was in Canada, investigating some local reports about a one-armed hermit who supposedly lived in a wildlife preserve. "Absolutely insufferable whenever he's got an idea. He'll reemerge when he's worked it out."

Steve leaned over the back of the couch, sweeping his fingers down her arm as he stooped to read over her shoulder. "It's not the vanishing act that worries me," he confessed ruefully. "It's the aftermath of whatever idea he's got cooking."

Peggy hummed in absent agreement, leaning into his touch even as she smiled at Sam's good-natured grousing about the cold Canadian winter.

The next day, Pepper made a formal appointment to meet with the captain in her office.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"He wouldn't want to tell you," Pepper told Steve quietly, "but he's been suffering quite a bit of residual nerve pain from the operation site in his chest."

Steve set his teeth, pacing off a loose square in the middle of Pepper's office floor. "How long?"

Pepper hesitated, and he knew he wouldn't like the answer. Her spine was very straight, but her eyes were tired, and she had slipped her heels off behind the safety of her desk. "I'm not exactly sure, but it's been several months. Bruce invited Helen Cho here to take a look, see what could be done. She's a specialist in…"

"Synthetic-organic interfaces; I remember." Steve shook his head. "What's that, fake skin?"

"Actually, yes," Pepper tapped on her screen, turning it to show him a set of computer generated images. "The idea is to create simulacra of tissue cells using a variation of 3D printing technology. Doctor Cho is a genius - she invented the procedure herself."

Steve took the tablet into his hand, flipping through the images. "Will it work? Will she just make him new nerves or something?"

The muscles tightened around Pepper's eyes. "She's never actually tried it outside an experimentally controlled situation. And no, no new nerves. Right now she's pretty much confined to repairs of the epidermal layer. Someday though, maybe in fifty years, she hopes to be able to do more delicate internal work, even create new organs."

There was a misty look in the woman's eyes, and Steve nodded quietly, handing the tablet back. "So she'll fix his skin, then."

Pepper nodded. She had explained to him the finer points of neuropathy, and how the damaged skin nerves shot tingling waves of pain through Tony's chest at even the lightest touch. Hopefully this procedure would insulate and protect the nerves in question, preventing them from further irritation.

"When is all this going down?" Steve's voice was carefully level. Pepper sighed and scraped back her hair from her face, twisting it into a bun with a pencil. With a back corner of her mind, she made a mental note to replace it with a nice clip before the teleconference with Hong Kong in a few hours.

"A day or so," she finally admitted. "They've been setting up in Bruce's lab. I thought you should know before things go any further."

Steve nodded his thanks and turned to go, but Pepper saw the flinty look in his eye and flew around the edge of her desk, stopping him with a hand on his arm.

"Go easy on him," she urged, and felt him soften slightly. "He - he's had a lot of trust issues, and he was afraid to tell anybody for fear he'd get kicked off the team."

"A team's only a team as far as it acts like one," the captain told her quietly, but she knew he would take her words into consideration.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Steve didn't usually go into the labs, so his sudden appearance was enough to let Tony know that the game was up. Still, he played it for all he was worth.

"Hey, long time no see, Cap!" he greeted, as though he hadn't seen the captain that very morning. "What brings you down here?"

Steve didn't answer for a minute, brushing past the billionaire and moving toward the long, low table in the middle of the room. Doctor Cho looked up from an adjustment she was making to one of the panels, and smiled, eyes hopefully flickering behind him. Thor wasn't there, so she returned to her work, biting her lip absently.

"Nice setup you got here," the captain remarked at last, casually. He gestured to the partially completed arch over the table, the mess of wiring that Bruce Banner was methodically untangling. "What do you call it?"

Pleased at being asked about her work, Helen Cho raised her head again, completely missing Tony's frantic hand motions behind the captain's back. "It's a travel version of my regeneration cradle," she explained. "We are installing it to perform some trials on neuropathic tissue."

Behind the captain, Tony smacked his forehead in frustration. Steve merely nodded pleasantly, continuing his self-guided tour further into the lab, away from the others. For lack of something better to do, Tony trailed behind.

"Look, Cap," he started, not quite sure where he was going to go with the sentence, but then Steve stopped and turned around. The captain took a long look over his shoulder at the regeneration cradle, and then an equally long look at his friend - and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a flat, brightly colored envelope.

"Here," he said, holding it out.

Tony hesitated and then reached for it as if he thought it might explode. "What is this, a resignation?"

Steve didn't smile. "It's a get well card. I heard about your upcoming procedure. Would have liked you to have told me yourself, but I suppose that's your business."

The card was a goofy one, featuring a child with a handful of balloons, cheerfully assuring the reader that they would surely be feeling better soon. Steve had embellished it with great care, adding Pepper's signature ponytail and facial expression to the child's head and including some of Tony's robots in the background.

Stark blinked. He had not expected this. "So, you're not mad?"

"No," the captain answered, and his face was very grave. "I'm disappointed though. We're a team, Stark. If one of us isn't at maximum capacity, I need to know, or it could put the others in danger."

 _Ouch_. Tony winced inwardly. Steve turned toward the door, but paused.

"Get feeling better," he said sincerely. "Let me know if I can help."

He was gone then, leaving Tony standing in the middle of the room with the card still in his hand. Flipping it open at last, he paused, surprised and a little bit touched. The inside of the card featured a carefully drawn Iron Man in a hospital bed, with Peggy and the Avengers crowded around. Each one had signed it, and across the bottom Steve had scrawled a few words.

 _The team's got your back, Tony._

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **So yes - Bruce went to Korea to get Dr. Cho, who he's been corresponding with for a while now. I can't remember - did anybody guess that?**

 **The idea of using tissue regeneration to insulate damaged nerves isn't actually as farfetched as it sounds. There are already medical operations and procedures that try to wrap or swathe damaged nerves in tissue to keep them from being irritated.**

 **Also: is it just me, or is the image of Thor cheerfully posing with groups of tourists a delightful one?**

 **Have a great week, you all!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"What are you doing?" Peggy demanded suspiciously, jumping a little as Steve's arms came around her sides, reaching for the sink, effectively trapping her between the edge of the counter and the wall of his body.

He laid his chin on her shoulder. "I'm doing the dishes," he answered very innocently, vigorously attacking a mixing bowl in the sink with a scrub brush. He had broken three brushes in the past week alone. Peggy claimed he was careless. Steve argued that the plastic was poor quality.

"And am I absolutely necessary to this process?" Peggy inquired loftily. She felt her husband nod decisively.

"Always," he assured her, lips warm against her cheek. She could hear the smile in his voice.

Peggy swatted him in the face with a dishtowel, and he laughed aloud, sweeping her closer, dishes forgotten. Their dinner almost burned before either one remembered it.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Over dinner, they discussed the endless search for Bucky. The potential lead in Canada had fizzled out completely, leaving them at sea once more.

 _No luck_ , Sam had sent a message that morning. _Guy is a veteran, but he isn't our man. I got in touch with his daughter - he'll live with her until he can get his feet under him again. Where do you want me to go after this?_

Steve stabbed thoughtfully at the casserole on his plate. "Russia?" he suggested for the thousandth time. "He could have gone back, tried to track down the ones who..." he trailed off, frowning at the makeshift map they'd cobbled together in the middle of the table using Peggy's napkin, the ketchup bottle, a handful of toothpicks, and Steve's water glass and spoon. Even now, he still had a hard time talking about Bucky's torturers. Things tended to get broken when he thought about it too long.

Peggy shook her head. "If he's tracking down his former handlers, then he's doing it awfully quietly and ignoring the obvious targets that are still here in the States, awaiting trial. Pass the salt, will you?"

"He can do things quietly," Steve argued, scanning the table for the salt shaker. "You know how good he was at being quiet. Saved both our lives I don't know how many times."

It was true. Bucky had indeed been good at being silent. For a young man with a love of laughter and dancing, he had been one of the most stealthy, accurate snipers Peggy had ever known. The thought of their loyal, thoughtful friend being twisted into a deadly, mindless assassin made her sick to her stomach, and Peggy picked listlessly at her food.

"So you don't think he's in Russia." Steve reiterated, glancing up at his wife before going back to his hunt for the salt.

Peggy set down her fork, watching his fruitless search with interest. "I think the two of you are more alike than you realize," she answered obliquely. "The first thing you did when you woke up was to get away from the people holding you. The second was look for someplace familiar while you learned this new world."

Long nights filled with the rhythmic thump of his fists hitting sand-filled bags in the old gym flooded back through Steve's memory, and he nodded. He'd spent his days walking the streets and his nights in the gym - the one familiar place he'd been able to find, despite the extensive remodeling and new equipment.

"You think he's still running then?" he asked his wife, lifting the napkin holder from its current role as Africa on their makeshift map to look behind it. The salt wasn't there either; he sat up a little taller in his seat to look the whole table over.

Peggy shook her head decidedly. "I think he's done running," she said, deliberately reaching across the table to pick up the missing salt shaker from beside Steve's plate where it had been sitting the entire time. "I think that he's lying low, looking for familiarity." She tapped the shaker pointedly, raising her eyebrows. "And I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he was right under our noses."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

After dinner, Peggy situated herself comfortably on the couch and reached for a novel while Steve puttered around the kitchen, cleaning up. They had a deal - the person who made the meal didn't have to clean up after it. Tonight Peggy had cooked, so Steve cleaned as she read to him, raising her voice to be heard over the rush of water in the sink.

" _Why don't you use the dishwasher?"_ Stark always managed to gripe, on the handful of occasions he had witnessed their evening routine. " _Sheesh, fix up your place and you still think you're living in the Dark Ages."_

The truth was, that half the time they completely forgot about the appliance's existence - and the rest of the time they washed the dishes purely by habit. Besides, it wasn't as if they dirtied a great deal of dishes between the two of them, and this gave them both a chance to unwind from the pressures of the day.

Quiet evenings like this were rare, squeezed in between the search for the scepter, their private investigation into Bucky, and the day-to-day demands of being an Avenger - and therefore they were all the more treasured when an opportunity came.

Kitchen cleaned at last, Steve came to join Peggy in the living room, sitting on the other end of the couch and grinning as she promptly deposited her feet in his lap to be rubbed. The lamplight was warm on her hair, her soft accent graced and lilted over the words of the story, and her eyes sparkled as she looked up over the top of the book at him.

Every now and then, the incredible fact of their wedded domesticity hit Steve like a tank, and this was one of those times. He felt very married, and very, very much in love.

At length, Peggy reached the end of the chapter, marked her place with a bookmark, and then snapped the book shut, reaching to lay it on the coffee table. Steve squeezed her feet gently, and Peggy relaxed a little more deeply into the couch with a heartfelt groan of appreciation.

"You'd think," she pointed out idly, "that people from the future would make comfortable shoes a priority."

"They do." Steve massaged her instep. "You've seen those shoes Pepper wears when she isn't on the clock."

Peggy wiggled her toes in dreamy pleasure. "Boats," she said severely. "They look like boats on her feet. Must comfortable shoes always be ugly?"

"Not always," Steve said, remembering. "There was that red pair you had during the war."

Peggy dimpled, biting her lip. "Oh, they weren't terribly comfortable," she admitted slyly. "But they did make a certain captain look at me rather more often than otherwise."

Steve blinked and then stared at her, processing the new information. "You mean you carted that pair of heels all up and down the Western Theater just to make me look at you? Believe me, I was looking at you anyway, shoes or not."

She sat up, schooling her expression into mock-solemnity. "Women have to do fearful and wonderful things to get their men to see them, Captain - and I couldn't exactly take the red dress out on the front lines, now could I?"

Steve didn't answer directly. Instead, he propped his head on his fist, planted his elbow on the back of the couch, and shamelessly proceeded to admire her with his eyes until Peggy couldn't keep a straight face anymore.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded half laughingly, and her husband waggled his eyebrows with a grin.

"Looking at you," he answered. "Have I told you recently how amazing you are?"

Peggy pursed her lips primly. "Now that you mention it, no." She swung her feet out of his lap and stood briskly, picking up her empty water glass and stepping around the couch toward the kitchen. "You're welcome to tell me again though, whenever - whenev- oh…"

Her face went white as a sheet, and Steve's world was shaken to its core as she collapsed in the middle of the floor, glass shattering around her.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

" _Mom!"_

 _The dull thud of his mother's body hitting the floor was quite possibly the worst sound he had ever heard. Steve's heart lurched high in his throat, and their tiny home seemed entirely too large as he skidded across the room to her side. "Mom?"_

 _His voice cracked ridiculously, at once straddling the line between childishly shrill and the lower register it had finally settled into recently. Holding his breath to steady himself, Steve stared at the row of buttons up the front of her dress until they rose and fell, and he knew she was breathing._

" _Hey, Mama, can you hear me?"_

 _Her eyes shifted under her eyelids, but she didn't wake up. Swallowing his terror, Steve knelt over her helplessly, trying to think. His mother was a slight woman, but despite his recent, pitifully small growth spurt, he knew he couldn't carry her._

 _He went into his own room instead, hands trembling as he tried to hurry, unwilling to leave her alone for long. Dragging the thin pillow and blanket off of his bed, he scrambled back to his mother, knocking his elbow painfully against the doorframe. He pulled off her shoes, covering her with the blanket as well as he could, and then tucked the pillow carefully beneath her head._

 _There was nothing else to do after that but wait._

 _When Sarah Rogers came to, a heartbreakingly long time later, it was to find her teenage son kneeling beside her. Relief and worry struggled in his eyes, and his hand was clenched white-knuckled around the glass of water he offered._

" _You're gonna be okay," he told her firmly, echoing the words she had said to him so many times before. At the time he didn't understand the sadness in her face._

 _A few days later, she began coughing up blood. There was nothing anybody could do._

 _She didn't want to infect him - her precious boy with such incredibly poor health, but they couldn't even pretend to afford a sanitarium and Steve stubbornly refused to move in with the Barnes family and let her die alone. They argued over it, the strong-willed woman and her equally determined son._

" _It's my turn, Mama," he finally panted, breath rasping in his chest, blue eyes desperately earnest, jaw set in a way he'd inherited from his dead father. "You've taken care of me my whole life. Now let me look after you."_

 _He nursed his mother until her death. Near the end, she was light enough that even he could lift her._

 _Steve wouldn't have traded that time with his mother for anything else in the world._

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Steve completely overturned both the coffee table and the couch in his mad scramble to reach his wife before she hit the ground. "Peggy! Peggy? Peggy, talk to me."

Her head rolled limply in the crook of his elbow, and for one horrifying, soul-curdling moment he thought she was dead. Then her dark eyes fluttered half open, and she looked up at him, confused. "Steve? What..."

"You fainted," he told her, and his voice was shaking.

Peggy's eyes drifted shut, but she shook her head decidedly. "Rubbish," she mumbled. "I don't faint."

It was true. She had never been one for passing out all over the place. The fact that she had fainted now for no obvious reason left Steve deeply shaken. He couldn't believe he had never considered it - chills, fainting, nausea - they were all earmarks of the disease that had claimed his mother's life. The terrible realization closed around him, and he suddenly felt as if there was not enough air in the room.

He promptly picked her up, despite her protests, and carried her into their room, completely ignoring the mess he'd left the front room in. He would clean it up later.

Their bed was huge - almost as big as Steve's entire childhood bedroom. Tony had furnished the suite as a wedding present, and neither of them had the heart to tell him that the bed was far too large. Settling his wife up against the pillows, Steve laid the back of his hand against her forehead, checking for a temperature before leaning close to examine the whites of her eyes.

"Steve, I'm fine," Peggy pushed his hand away from her face and sat up. It didn't escape his attention that she moved a little carefully, but the color was slowly coming back into her face. "I just got up too fast, that's all."

He promptly moved behind her, holding her shoulders when she tried to turn, jerking the back of her shirt free from her waistband and pulling it up, pressing his ear against her skin. "Breathe deep," he ordered tersely, listening closely. "Again?" he asked after a minute.

"Steve," she protested, exasperated, but obeyed.

Her breathing was clear. There was no sound of crackling or bubbling in either lung. With a shuddering gasp of relief, Steve laid his forehead against her warm back and tried to slow his pounding heart. Of course she didn't have tuberculosis - there had been no fever, no night sweats, no coughing. He of all people should know the major symptoms; he'd just lost his head for a minute there, her collapse touching a little too closely on fears he hadn't even realized he still carried.

At length he let her go, and she turned to him, an indignant question on her lips. Something in his face must have betrayed his fear and helplessness though, because her eyes softened, and she reached out, pulling him close. "I frightened you, didn't I?"

With a long breath, Steve put his arms around her, pressing his cheek into her hair so she couldn't see the terror he knew was still written plainly across his face. He wouldn't tell her how he thought he had lost her, how he still feared he might lose her. The years where he had mourned her as dead had risen up in his face, and he realized just how thoroughly her death would shatter him again.

"Talk to Banner," he begged, before he realized he was speaking. Her fingers curled into the back of his shirt, and he swallowed painfully. "Please, Peggy."

She hesitated and then hummed contentedly into his ear, nodding against his shoulder. "All right. You can bring it up with him if it means that much to you, and I'll see him."

He let his eyes fall closed in relief, holding her a while longer before gathering himself together with a supreme effort.

"Where do you think you're going?" she demanded as he began to pull away.

"I kind of wrecked the table," he sheepishly told her. "Got to go pick it up."

Peggy caught at his shirt, and her touch stopped him faster than any other force on earth. "Leave it, soldier," she said firmly. "We'll fix it in the morning."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

That night, Steve lay close beside her as she slept. He kept his hand on her ribs, counting every breath she took, treasuring the steady rise and fall of her lungs.

She still awed him. How did a guy like him end up with a gal like her? Peggy was strong, fearless, daring, a great shot, and so beautiful that his heart stuttered every time she looked at him.

Before they had been married, he never could have dreamed of how wonderful marriage could be. Talking with her, trusting her implicitly, laughing against her lips as he wound his hands through her hair - and Peggy kissing him back until his head spun, stepping into his life and standing strong and straight at his side, the partner he had surrendered his heart to so long ago.

Sweet heavens, how he loved her. Losing her now, after everything they had shared - he knew it would all but kill him.

Steve settled his face into her shoulder. He would talk to Doctor Banner in the morning.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Ahem. *waves sheepishly* I'd say life is crazy, but that's more of a constant than an exception - so I'll just give you** **a little domesticity and a paranoid Steve, and we'll call it good, okay?**

 **Thanks so much for your reviews. Seriously, on days when I was about ready to call off posting fanfiction until spring, it was your reviews that spurred me on to get this up. Y'all are lifesavers. Don't ever let me stop, because I fall out of the habit and then it's terribly hard to get started again.**

* * *

 **ChildofGod: Thanks! Things are okay for now. You?**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Bruce, preoccupied with the developments around Helen Cho's regeneration cradle, proved to be surprisingly hard to hunt down. Steve managed it at last, cornering the doctor in the depths of the tower's loading dock where Banner was shuffling through empty shipping crates, looking for a missing piece that was needed for the final installation.

"So she's still cold, but now she's throwing up and fainting?" Bruce frowned after the captain's explanation, pulling up Peggy's medical records on his handheld screen. "Did you have side-effects like that after thawing out?"

Steve nodded reluctantly. He had been sick to his stomach after waking up in this new world, but at the time had assumed most of that was due to the crushing realization that everything he had ever known, ever loved, had been left in the past forever. "Not for more than a few weeks, though. I do get cold sometimes, still."

Bruce played with a pencil as he skimmed through the long list of test results. A few months earlier, Peggy had finally put her foot down and refused to be poked again. At the time he had agreed, but with these new developments, he really wanted to run another blood test.

"Could be any one of a number of things," he finally shrugged. "She could be running out of the last of your serum, or she could just be plain sick. I'd like to run a physical."

The captain nodded shortly, gratitude evident in his firm handshake. "I'll let her know. Thanks, Banner."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The day before Tony's procedure was scheduled to take place, the Avengers got word of yet another small Hydra base - this one in Australia. Rather than have him put off the long-planned procedure, they decided to divide and conquer.

"We can handle it," Natasha promised, jerking her chin toward Thor and Clint. Beside them, Steve nodded gravely. "Stay here," he told the billionaire. "Have your operation. The place is small enough we shouldn't have any trouble."

"But what if the scepter's there?" Tony demanded, gesturing wildly between himself and Doctor Banner. "Admit it; you need us. What if the base is bigger than you think, and you need a Code Green?"

Steve shrugged. "Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." He stood, pushing his chair back. "Suit up - wheels up in thirty," he ordered, clapped Tony encouragingly on the shoulder, and vanished through the doors.

Peggy wasn't coming. She had a series of meetings with SHIELD, and the opportunity to investigate a few Hydra techs who had been caught and imprisoned after the Washington DC debacle. There was a slight chance they might have been among those to handle Bucky Barnes, and at this point Steve and Peggy were both willing to do almost anything to find even the slightest of leads.

"Stay safe," she told him, balancing his shield on her fingertips and holding it out. Steve took it, stooping to kiss her goodbye.

"You too," he murmured. "Don't forget to talk to Banner, okay?"

"Mmm." Peggy cocked her head saucily. "Such a romantic farewell. Don't worry - I'll be good."

Steve's eyebrows twitched an inch higher. Peggy caught the teasing gleam in his eyes just a fraction of a second too late to avoid being caught, dipped backward in his arms, her startled laughter kissed off her lips. She slapped at the star on his chest as he set her back on her feet.

"You're incorrigible," she pointed out, trying to catch her breath. "And you're going to be late."

Steve didn't quite smile, but the infinite warmth and unspeakable joy in his eyes as he looked at her was quite enough.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Tony's procedure took place the next morning. Pepper quietly cancelled a conference to sit in the corner of the lab, watching. It wasn't as big a deal as his heart surgery had been, but she wanted to be there anyway.

The procedure took longer than anybody had expected. Doctor Cho was particularly careful, running a number of scans before actually starting. Banner hovered nearby, deeply interested in the proceedings. While Pepper waited, she fielded emails on her tablet, and kept herself updated on the other half of the team.

The Australia base had, unsurprisingly, turned out to be pretty insignificant in the large scheme of things. It was a newer base, probably established as a hideout after the big reveal in Washington DC, and was poorly staffed. The partial team of Avengers had been able to take it down easily, in cooperation with the Australian government.

 _We should be back within twenty-four hours_ , Steve promised in his most recent message. _Prisoners will need to be briefed, but the ASIO is handling that. Tell Stark there's no sign of any scepter-powered technology._

"It tickles." Tony's voice broke through Pepper's concentration. He sounded like a kid at Christmas. At his insistence they had set up a mirror so he could see what was going on. He'd kept up a running commentary the entire time. "Am I done?"

Doctor Cho swung back the arch over the table and bent over him, doing something Pepper couldn't catch. Bruce hurried over, eagerly taking notes.

"Yes, you are done." Helen Cho held out a hand, but Tony ignored it, hopping off the table and rubbing his chest. "Hey, Pep!" he said cheerfully, and then staggered sideways until Bruce pushed a chair beneath him. "Wow, dizzy."

They got him something to boost his blood sugar, and Tony propped his heels on a desk and munched away while Bruce and Doctor Cho examined him. It still tickled, but Helen Cho assured him the sensation was the skin cells knitting together, and it would pass in a couple of hours.

"Can you feel this?" she asked, palpating the new skin with a professional touch.

Tony froze mid-chew, looking down at the doctor's hand on his chest. For a moment his eyebrows puckered in anticipated pain - and then his eyes widened when the expected white-hot stabbing sensation never came.

"You trying to feel me up, lady? Because you should know I'm in a committed relationship with the redhead over there," he tried to joke, attempting to deflect attention from his vulnerability.

Doctor Cho smiled for the first time since the procedure began. "Then I shall let her 'feel you up,' instead" she said, and turned to call across the room. "Ms. Potts, come examine the patient, will you?"

Pepper waited until Cho had stepped aside with Banner to check the machine before she approached, a little stiffly, a little self-consciously. For a moment she couldn't help but compare this to the first time she'd helped Tony with his arc reactor. He had been leaning back, bare-chested just like this - only that time he'd had a gaping metal-lined hole in his chest, and this time his skin was new and pink.

"Am I - am I going to hurt you?" she asked, reaching out hesitantly. "I feel like I'm going to hurt you."

"You won't hurt me," Tony assured her, raising his voice to talk over her even as she persisted in her worried rambling. "It's not going - Pepper, it's - _Pepper_." She fell silent at last, and he fixed her with his most intent gaze. "It's not going to hurt. Just try, okay?"

Slowly, carefully, Pepper flattened her hand against his skin, eyes on his face, ready to stop at the slightest sign of pain. Instead, she got a grin and a roguish wink.

"It's fine," he assured her. "It's fine. How does it feel? Like plastic? Bionic Man in the twenty-first century? As if I wasn't already..."

Pepper blinked hard, and gave him a shaky, genuine smile. She had seen this man with metal in his chest, with sutures and skin grafts after surgery, with massive scarring. "It feels like skin," she marvelled. "This is amazing - it feels just like skin."

"That's because it is skin," Banner pointed out, coming up to join them. Tony shot him an annoyed look for interrupting their moment, but Bruce ignored it with the ease of long practice. "Synthetic skin cells, anyway. We need to do some more checkups, whenever you're ready?"

Tony complained halfheartedly, but Pepper patiently extracted her hand from his, patting his shoulder before avoiding his grasp and stepping briskly towards the exit. At the door, she caught his eye across the room and he grinned rakishly, shooting her a thumbs-up. Pepper smiled back and then quietly collected her tablet and briefcase.

The procedure had been a success. Now she had to get back to work.

After all, things in Stark Industries weren't going to fix themselves.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

" _Who'll stand and fight like a man for what's right night and day?"_

Steve Rogers stopped short on the threshold, craning his neck to look cautiously into the warmly-lit room. Black and white action flickered across their screen, and the Captain America theme song rang out in surprisingly good quality.

"Peggy?" he called out carefully as he rubbed at his hair, still damp from the hasty shower he had taken in the locker room downstairs. The team had only just got back from Australia, and he'd been unwilling to return to her smelling like explosives and sweat.

A hand came into view over the top of the couch, beckoning imperiously, and he crossed the room to find her curled up with a photo album in her lap. She tipped up her chin, looking at him a little oddly, sweeping him head to toe with her eyes. Half-playfully, he pulled himself to attention as he looked down at her, heart swelling at the incredible feeling of being able to come back to her - to his _wife_ \- after a mission.

"Do I pass inspection?" he finally asked. Peggy considered for a moment longer before nodding decisively.

"You'll do, Captain."

She made room for him, and he sat next to her, grinning tolerantly as she tugged at his shirt and tried to punch his shoulder into a more comfortable shape for her head. "Yeah, that's me," he joked, putting his arm around her. "Captain America: sofa cushion."

Peggy laughed softly; he could feel it against his ribs. "Hush - be a good sofa cushion and let me watch the film."

On the screen, Captain America cleared a tank with one bound and pulled the trigger on his machine gun, shooting blanks toward stage right. Steve remembered filming that bit - it had been one of the earlier things he'd done. He'd struggled to gauge the distance of the jump, either landing on the camera or kicking over the prop tank. They had refilmed it so many times that the grim expression on his face hadn't entirely been acting.

"Why are we watching this?" he wondered aloud, and Peggy snuggled a little closer against his side.

"Why? Do you have an objection?" she asked.

He shook his head, grinning despite himself as the captain on the screen swept three stuntmen off their feet. That had been a fun scene to film, and he had learned a lot from those men about the rhythm of fighting and how to take a fall. "No objections - just curious."

Peggy looked down, spreading her hand out across their photo album. It didn't have much - just a handful of pictures they had scratched up from various museums and attics and the internet, with a few recent ones they had taken themselves.

Flipping through the pages, she let their lives flicker by - her parents standing stiffly for their wedding photograph, Steve Rogers as a fragile, sickly baby cradled close to his dying father's chest, Peggy and her brother wearing rhubarb leaves as hats, a rare photo of Steve's mother in her nurse's apron and cap. More recently, there were pictures of Peggy and Steve in uniform, with and without the Howling Commandos. Colonel Phillips glared at the camera, Dugan winked, and Bucky laughed.

"I suppose I just wanted a walk down memory lane," she told him at last.

The next pages of the book were the newest ones, with colored photographs that JARVIS had been good enough to print out for them. The Avengers goofed off in nearly every picture - Natasha gave Bruce rabbit ears behind his unsuspecting head, Clint went cross-eyed, and Tony was always blurry because he couldn't stand still long enough. There was a fuzzy still shot from the security camera in Peggy's recovery room of Steve praying on his knees beside her bed, and a snapshot that Clint had taken of the two of them the night they got engaged.

Peggy brushed her fingers across their smiling faces, and then flipped the last few pages, looking at their wedding and honeymoon pictures.

The rest of the book was blank.

"I used to laugh at Jarvis," Peggy remembered aloud, closing the cover and smoothing it down with her palm. They both watched the screen as Captain America sneaked around a blind corner, jumping the Nazi soldier on the other side. Steve winced reflexively. He'd about broken the guy's arm, slipping on the soundstage floor.

"What for?" he asked against her hair, glancing down at her, immediately distracted by the way her profile looked in the lamplight.

His wife tipped her head back against his shoulder reminiscently. "He always insisted on going home to spend the evening with Ana, and I would get annoyed because I needed him to back me up."

"Are you still laughing?" Steve wondered, mouth very close to her ear.

"Yes," Peggy decided. "Because I have the best of both worlds. When I need to be out late, you're generally out there with me." She threw him a coquettish glance out of the corner of her eye. "There is something to be said for evenings at home though."

Steve Rogers, as it turned out, had very strong feelings about the desirability of evenings at home, and the rest of the show played out, only half attended to.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The music under the end credits jolted them both back to earth and Steve untangled himself with a groan, groping for the remote. Peggy leaned up on her elbows and watched, amused, as he hunted for the mute button.

"Every time," he finally said, locating the button and tossing the remote onto the table. "Every time that song plays, it reaches my cue and I have this irresistible urge to run onstage and get everyone to buy E bonds."

Peggy laughed, soft and warm and easily, and Steve beamed back at her, hair standing on end from where she'd been playing with it. "You're a sight, darling," she scolded comfortably, sitting up the rest of the way and reaching for him. He grinned beneath her hands and ducked his head for easier access as she busily raked her fingers through his hair, smoothing it back into place.

"Am I presentable now, Mrs. Rogers?" he inquired after a few minutes, brushing her knuckles with his lips as they strayed too near. He had meant to make her smile, but a wave of sobriety swept through her eyes, and she regarded him closely again. Then she did smile, quietly, pleased.

"Hold me," she half-asked, half-demanded, and reached up, catching the collar of his shirt. He came willingly, lying down beside her. The couch was entirely too narrow for both of them, but Steve wedged himself in along the edge, balancing somehow. Peggy was pressed so close to him that he could feel each breath she took, and her hair tickled his cheek as she tucked her head into his shoulder. The room was growing dark, but the lamp shed a warm pool of light around them both.

"You okay, Peg?" he finally asked, fingers drifting up and down the line of her arm as the last of his tension left over from the mission melted away. There was something different about her tonight, but she hadn't fainted since that evening a few days ago, and had assured him she was fine.

Instead of answering at once, she looked up at his face, head twisting against his chest. "I think I am, yes," she finally decided. "Steve?"

"Mmm?"

Peggy smiled softly to herself, caught her breath with a secret thrill, and then tipped up her chin and whispered earnestly into his ear.

Steve sat up so fast that he fell off the couch.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **ASIO = Australian Security Intelligence Organization. It is to Australia what MI5 is to Great Britain and the FBI is to America.**

 **Descriptions of the oldest photographs were largely taken from my great-grandmother's photo album.**

 **Pepper wouldn't behave, so you can blame her for this chapter's tardiness. But my goodness, people - I have been waiting for this chapter for a very long time. :)**

* * *

 **Laughy Taffy: Thank you! Oh goodness, I could have sworn I just barely updated - and then I looked at the date of your review and about died. Hope this wasn't too long for you to wait!**

 **ChildofGod: Thanks for the prayers, as always. :) Delighted the characterizations are working for you!**

 **S.M: Oh my goodness, thank you so much! I totally get the super-shy thing, and I'm deeply gratified that you would leave a review anyway. To be honest, getting your review made my day. :)**

 **A Guest and Fan: You may be late, but I'm even later. Ha! Oh, I wondered whether or not you would guess Cho, but I figured not. She's a fairly understated character. Really, the only hint was Bruce looking for a phone number to make a call in the middle of the night - which would be daytime in Korea.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Steve hit the ground with a muffled thump that shook the floor. Then he sat bolt upright, staring rather wildly at her, eyes huge.

"... What did you say?" he finally asked, carefully hushed, as if afraid to speak out loud.

Peggy leaned up on one elbow, her head on a level with his. "You heard me, Captain." Her voice had a lilt to it, eyes dancing, lips pursed as she tried to hide her amusement at the comic image he presented.

"You're - um. You - you're...?" Steve couldn't quite breathe; every asthma attack and punch to the stomach he'd ever had seemed all rolled together to take the air out of his lungs. He swallowed hard against an overwhelming surge of ridiculous, incredulous hope. "Peggy..."

There were tears in her smile now, but her face was radiant. "Yes. Although I think the correct term might be 'we.'"

He couldn't move, didn't dare blink, eyes darting between her face and her waist as he processed the incredible truth in her words. "But they said - I - I can't…"

Peggy leaned forward, cupping his cheek in her palm, fingers light and warm on his skin. He stared back at her, riveted. "Apparently even Doctor Erskine didn't know everything, darling," she whispered softly.

For a moment Steve's hands hovered uncertainly, as if terrified to touch her, and then he caught a ragged breath and pressed in with a rush to kiss her fervently, his whole heart on his lips. Eyes wide with awed wonder, he finally drew back, just an inch.

"May I?" he asked, and she nodded, mouth quivering with joy and emotion. Forehead furrowing in earnest concentration, Steve sat back on his heels and very tentatively reached out one hand to touch her stomach - in entirely the wrong place.

Peggy swallowed a tearful half-laugh and repositioned his hand, drawing it farther down to cover the slight swell that neither of them had paid any particular mind to before. It seemed impossible, but there it was. Steve gulped, fingers splaying out gently beneath hers.

"Hey, there," he whispered, and his face was very bright, even as his voice cracked. "I'm your dad."

For as long as she lived, Peggy Rogers would never forget that moment. Her husband knelt beside her, palm warm over the place where their baby grew, and his eyes were very blue and very wet when he looked up at her. The reverence and joy in his face was like nothing she had ever seen from him before.

"Peg," he breathed. "Peggy, I'm gonna be a father."

She reached for him then, and he pulled her into his arms, laughing brokenly in gratitude and shock as he cradled his wife and child close against his heart. Peggy held onto him equally tightly, with all her fierce affection, and together they cherished the tiny spark of life they had created.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Very few people throughout history had ever seen Steve Rogers so completely, incandescently happy as he was that night. He couldn't stop beaming, touching Peggy with awed joy, lingering as close as humanly possible and barely letting her out of his reach for more than a moment. More than once he walked into things, too distracted to watch where he was going, too giddy to notice.

It really was terribly adorable, Peggy thought, as Steve bumped his shoulder against the dresser and nearly tipped it over. He used to forget his size more frequently in the early days, but it still cropped up now and then when he was excited or distracted or completely focused on something else.

"And you're sure?" he asked for the dozenth time, finally settling in the bathroom doorway, brushing his teeth and leaning against the doorframe. He'd started trying to brush his teeth twice before and lost track of what he was doing each time, stopping short to look at his wife as if she was some kind of miracle-worker or giving her sudden toothpaste-flavored kisses.

Peggy finished pinning the last coil of her hair into place. Natasha could promote her curling wand and hair straighteners all she liked, but pin curls worked better for her particular hair than anything else she'd tried in this new era. "I'm sure. Bruce found out, when he checked me over. Actually, he was rather surprised we hadn't figured it out yet."

Rather surprised - that was an understatement. Apparently she had been pregnant for some time, completely unaware.

" _On the positive side," Bruce had finally said, shaking his head as he stared at her test results, "I think you're probably just about past the morning sickness phase."_

Peggy felt more than a little chagrined about not realizing sooner, but so many things had contributed to the misunderstanding. They had thought Steve couldn't have children and assumed that her own lingering ill health was entirely due to being frozen for so long. She had never had close married female friends who might have set her straight, her mother was long dead, and it helped that she was so slow to show as well.

It had only been very recently that she had began to wonder, though she hadn't mentioned a word of it to her husband until Bruce had confirmed her vague suspicions. To get his hopes up like this only to dash them - no, that would have been cruel.

Steve put his toothbrush away and moved to stand behind her, looking over her head into the mirror. One arm slid securely around her waist, while his other hand slipped down, palm spread protectively over her abdomen. Very tenderly, he pressed kisses to her cheek and throat, trying to convey just how much this meant to him.

"I love you," he whispered softly against her ear. "Thank you for this."

She leaned back against him, looking at the two - no, three of them in the mirror, her husband's bright head bowed against her own dark curls, their unborn child beneath his hand. This new development would bring so many changes into their life, but there was a deep sense of peace that came with knowing Steve would have her back through it all. They were partners in every sense of the word.

"Peg?" Steve pulled her a little closer, a troubled sound slipping into his voice. "I - I never really knew my dad. He died. I don't know if I'll know how to do this."

He would be a good father; Peggy had always known it. During the war kids would flock around him, tagging at his heels and he would play with them lightheartedly, fumbling his attempts to speak their languages. She couldn't think how many times she'd found him covered in children as they tried to find out how many of them he could hold at once.

Turning in his arms, Peggy pecked him softly on the cheek, reaching up to smooth the lines out of his forehead. "You picked up being a husband well enough," she assured him. "You'll figure it out. We both will."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

In the prosaic normality of the comfortably lit bathroom, sentiments like that were easy to believe, but nighttime was another matter altogether. Peggy slept soundly. Steve could hardly close his eyes, torn with equal parts exhilaration and terror.

A father. He was going to be a father to a tiny, precious little person made up of Peggy and himself. Hydra would be delighted, if they knew. One more way to strike at his heart - one very vulnerable way. Suddenly the world seemed crowded with peril.

They had never made their marriage public. As far as the world knew, Margaret Carter was just one more face that flooded in and out of Stark Tower in the sea of regular employees. If they ever went out together, they either kept the contact casual, or else tried to go incognito and avoid the cameras.

After all, Captain America had a target painted on him, both literally and figuratively. The remnants of Hydra that were left launched irregular but persistent attacks on all the Avengers, but Steve Rogers was the one they had it in for the most. Between Tony's security system and SHIELD, they had foiled at least six attempts on the captain's life in as many weeks, and he'd received nearly as many death threats as Tony.

The thought of what they could do to his wife if they found out about her chilled Steve to the bone - and now that fear was magnified exponentially.

Sliding closer in the big bed, he carefully put his arms around Peggy, trying to shelter her. Her face puckered a little before smoothing again, and she sighed contentedly in her sleep, a few dark locks of hair escaping the pins to curl across her pillow. Steve's heart swelled inside his chest until he thought it would crack.

It was astonishing. He had only known of the existence of his child for - he checked the clock - five hours, and already he was willing to do anything to protect it and the woman who held his heart. The responsibility was overwhelming.

Closing his eyes, Steve tried again to sleep, and again he failed. The doors were locked - he had checked three times - and he had a clear line of sight to the door and the windows. JARVIS was online, Peggy's handgun was loaded beneath her pillow, and his shield was close to hand as well.

Yet still he could not sleep.

With a sigh, Steve stared at the ceiling. It was going to be a long night.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy woke up the next morning to find her husband wrapped unusually tightly around her and something hard digging into her shoulder and the top of her leg. Craning her neck, she cracked open tired eyes to find a familiar shield carefully situated across her body, one huge hand holding it in place. With a groan, she rolled up her eyes and flopped her head back against the pillow.

"'Morning, sweetheart." Steve must have been sleeping lightly, because her movement was enough to wake him.

"What is this, my own personal air raid shelter?" she demanded, sitting up and looking down at him. The shield slid down across her lap, star gleaming in the warm morning light that was just beginning to bathe the room. "It's been seventy years - the war's over, Steve. I hardly think someone will fire off a doodlebug at us."

He smiled sleepily, but his eyes were serious. "No, nowadays they have aliens."

She would have bickered further on the topic, but he forestalled her. Sitting up, he kissed her softly and then bent his head to address her waistline, touching her gently, reverently. "Good morning, kiddo," he whispered against the fabric of her nightgown. The bright wonder and joy in his face made her pause and take a steadying breath.

After all, this man had lost everything at one point or another in his life, and he had always been overprotective by his very nature. She knew he still struggled with deep guilt over his perceived failure to protect Bucky. If sleeping with the shield was enough to give him some peace of mind - well, it was a small enough sacrifice to make.

Steve looked back up at her then, and Peggy stroked the dark shadows under his eyes with her thumb, smiling against his second kiss. "Dugan was right," she told him firmly when he pulled back. "You are a mother hen."

Steve cocked his head, making a show of considering her words. "I'm not that bad," he protested mildly.

He didn't fool her one bit.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Steven Grant Rogers!"

At the sound of Peggy's voice, Steve looked up from the screen where he had been analyzing the recordings of their Australian mission. The pad next to him was filled with notes of possible improvements and new ideas that he hoped to bring up at the meeting later. Next to him, Clint gave a low whistle, shaking his head.

"Man, I think you're in trouble."

Peggy stormed in then, and Steve jumped up, reaching to offer her a chair. She ignored it, marching right up to him to jab a finger into his chest. "Why is our refrigerator full of milk?"

Raising his eyebrows, Clint shoved off with his feet, sending his wheeled chair rolling into a far corner of the room and busying himself with something else. He could recognize a private conversation when he saw one.

"Um," Steve started. Peggy looked past him and saw Barton, who was industriously trying to pretend he wasn't there.

"Excuse us a moment," she announced, turning back towards the doorway. Steve almost tripped over his feet as he reached to get the door for her, carefully ushering her out of the room.

Clint's eyebrows twitched incredulously. Then he leaned back in his chair with a very thoughtful expression.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

They didn't go all that far. Peggy stepped briskly down the hall and threw open the door to one of the emergency stairwells. Steve let her drag him in, and she pulled the door firmly shut behind her and threw a cautious glance up and down the stairs to determine nobody else was there before whirling on one heel and repeating her earlier demand.

"Because it's good for you." Steve was being very earnest about the whole thing, which made it a little harder for Peggy to be cross. She folded her arms, tilting her chin as he continued. "Women who are - expecting," he paused over the word, and got the goofiest smile on his face as he rubbed the back of his neck, "are supposed to drink a lot of milk. I went out shopping this morning."

Peggy's heart softened as she looked up at her captain. She was glad he was excited about this, but all the same…

" _Twelve gallons_ of milk, Steve? Exactly how much do you think I'll be drinking?"

He had the grace to try to look at least a little sheepish, shifting his feet. "Just wanted to make sure we didn't run out."

Peggy bit back her amusement, trying to keep her face straight. "I imagine we won't run out for a very long time, then. You'll have to help me drink it all before it spoils, you know."

Steve's eyes twinkled. "Or we could invite Stark up for drinks sometime."

The mental image of Tony swirling a tumbler of milk was enough to crack the last of Peggy's composure, and she dimpled helplessly even as Steve's chuckles warmed her from head to toe.

Really - married to a man like this, the next several months were going to be quite the adventure.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **My dears - my own personal sword of Damocles has lifted, and in celebration I give you one of my favorite chapters. :) Sheesh, y'all are a bunch of stubborn hopefuls - I did my level best to mislead you about Peggy, but did you bite? No. Regardless of the fact that literally every one of her symptoms has at least ten other potential causes.**

 **Speaking of which, in case of doubt: yes, it is possible to mistake signs of pregnancy as symptoms of a preexisting condition for months, like Peggy does. Just ask my cousin. And yes, Steve's exposure to radiation and subsequent concerns is based in fact. During WWII my grandpa worked with radiation and was informed he would never have children because of it. Fortunately, their fears proved to be unfounded - otherwise I wouldn't be here.**

 **Tell me all the thoughts! I want - nay, I** _ **need**_ **to know!**

* * *

 **LaughyTaffy: Well, it ain't on a silver platter, but here you go! (Also, sugar roosters? What on earth is a sugar rooster?) :D**

 **ChildofGod: (Snickers gleefully) - I think I know what you were thinking, and I think you were probably right. :) Thanks! I'm fascinated by Tony and Pepper's relationship. Glad they came across okay.**

 **Olivia52: Thanks! I've been waiting for it too.**

 **Guest: So glad the characterizations came across all right - sometimes I worry. Thank you!**

 **S.M. :D Aww, shucks - thanks! Domestic life is like my favorite thing ever, and I'm absolutely delighted that you liked it too! Steve and Peggy deserve some down-time, in my humble opinion. And the ending - I seriously couldn't end it any other way. That's been set in stone since probably day one, and I'm tickled to death at your reaction. :)**

 **Guest: Thanks! Sadly, Spiderman won't show up in this story, but the others will. Glad you're liking it so far!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

To his credit, Steve tried not to hover. He really, really did.

He had always believed in the woman who was his wife, trusted her implicitly - and that hadn't changed, would _never_ change. What had changed, however, was his increased concern. He was excited and worried, both for her and the baby, not entirely certain how to navigate this new situation - and Peggy understood that. Truly, she did.

It didn't stop her from getting exasperated, though - which in turn, made her feel rather a beast for being annoyed because he was trying so very, very hard.

Life had settled back into an outward semblance of normality, but Steve was still increasingly protective, forever jumping up and fetching things for her, constantly attentive. Initially, Peggy had thought that it would wear off at some point, but this was Steve Rogers, and he persisted with a singleminded intensity that would have been rather admirable if it hadn't been so irritating.

It was inevitable that she would eventually lose her patience.

The Avengers were all in the communal kitchen when it finally happened. It wasn't even anything especially out of the ordinary - Steve simply reached over her head to get down a box she'd been going to jump for - but it was the fourth time in five minutes that he'd done something like that, and Peggy was feeling just a trifle petty and cramped. The frustration that had been building for days snapped inside of her with a harsh _twang_ , and before she'd even had time to think, she had grasped his extended arm, spinning forward before dipping and driving her shoulder into his chest in the move her brother had taught her so long ago. Caught off guard, unwilling to catch himself for fear of accidentally hurting her, Steve grunted in surprise and hit the floor with a crash that shook the cabinets.

Pepper hopped backward with a shocked little shriek, and the rest of the room fell abruptly silent, the conversation of the other Avengers coming to a halt as they all stared at the sudden dramatics. Tony whistled. Natasha raised both impeccable eyebrows. Flat on his back, Steve blinked up at her with comic surprise.

Peggy settled her hands on her hips, blood tingling in satisfaction.

"I'm your wife, not some damsel in distress," she pointed out severely.

The startled tension in the captain's body evaporated almost at once, and he caught his breath with a sheepish half-laugh, tipping his head back against the hard floor. "Point taken," he admitted contritely, spreading his hands in a surrender more real than any of the onlookers could know. "I yield. Don't shoot."

The sheer ridiculousness of her husband's undignified posture caught up with Peggy then, and she had to work hard to hide the sudden merriment that bubbled up inside her. From his place on the floor, Steve grinned, propping himself on his elbows and looking up at her with the same bright, warm admiration that she'd first seen on that never-to-be-forgotten day when they had first laid eyes on each other and she had treated Pvt. Hodge to a taste of her right hook.

The air cleared. Peggy reached out a hand and Steve accepted it along with her implied apology, rolling easily to his feet.

Certainly this was strange and new, and both of them would need to adapt to their new dynamic - but it was going to be all right.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

They had decided not to tell the others just yet.

"Because the longer we keep it to ourselves, the longer it'll take our enemies to find out," Steve declared, opening the top drawers on his half of the double-wide dresser and beginning to pull out his neatly folded stacks of socks. The orderly habits ingrained from years in the army had never quite gone away.

Peggy, only half-dressed, examined her reflection in the mirror, smoothing her slip over her stomach. She had begun to show more decidedly in the time since their discovery, but it was still quite concealable, despite the number of weeks she calculated she'd been expecting. As predicted, the nausea was finally beginning to lessen, and she'd been feeling better, less lightheaded since Bruce had prescribed some vitamins and supplements for her to take.

"Well, yes," she admitted, turning sideways and eying her profile critically. "But that wasn't exactly what I was thinking."

Steve opened his bottom drawer and began scooting the slacks he kept folded there to one side. "So what were you thinking?"

Peggy shook off her distraction with a toss of her head and reached for her blouse. "I don't want - Captain Rogers, what on earth are you doing?"

Caught, Steve looked up, ears reddening almost defensively. "I'm moving my things to the bottom drawers," he explained, industriously wedging his stacks of socks in beside his slacks. They almost fit - he had to squeeze the last few pairs in. "Figure the top ones will be easier for you. Just thought I'd have them ready in case you ever want 'em."

" _Steve_." Peggy propped her hands on her hips. "For heaven's sake. It's not as if I'm enormous yet - that's months away."

The mental image that Peggy's words conjured up in his head took Steve's breath away for a moment. He sat back on his heels, excitement flooding his ribcage and pushing out the fear. He could hardly wait.

"Excuse me," JARVIS broke in. "Miss Carter, your presence is requested downstairs."

The AI never _would_ call her Mrs. Rogers or even Agent. It was a quirk in his programming, but Peggy didn't fuss over it. It always made her smile and think of her own Mr. Jarvis, living out his retirement in Maine.

Now, at the reminder, Peggy looked at the clock and then went back to doing up her blouse. "I'm simply not ready to be sidelined," she explained, bypassing the drawer issue for the moment and returning to their previous conversation. "I intend to do my job for as long as I am able, and I have no desire to be condescended to by those who focus on my condition instead of my abilities."

Steve watched her for a minute, and then pushed the dresser drawers shut. He knew some of what she'd faced after the war - the constant devaluing of her worth, the incessant jabs, the snide or unthinking comments.

"I don't think the team would treat you that way," he ventured cautiously. "They're a pretty fair group."

Peggy zipped up her skirt and turned to step into her shoes, pausing briefly to look across at her husband. "I wasn't necessarily talking about the team, darling," she reassured him. As liaison with SHIELD, there were other people she had to work with that she wasn't quite so sure about. She frowned at her reflection in the mirror again, and then nodded briskly. "Right. Must dash."

She flew out the door into the hall, and then whirled back in just as quickly, rising on her toes to kiss her husband goodbye - a swift, casual touch, all the more wonderful because of the intimate familiarity it signified.

"Meddle with your drawers all you like, my darling," she allowed magnanimously, dark eyes dancing. "Just don't tumble my things, will you? I'll never find anything otherwise."

He promised, and then she was gone again, disappearing out into the hall with a flash of red heels and a trim skirt.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

February was filled with a string of sudden and unexpected emergencies and false alarms. The Avengers were called out again and again, and Peggy spent most of her time coordinating with SHIELD and trying to negotiate with the various countries involved.

"Everybody seems to think," she complained to Pepper one morning over a late breakfast, snatched after Pepper's early telephone conference with a Paris firm, "that they can call up the Avengers to order at the drop of the hat to fix all their problems."

Pepper shook her head a little wistfully. She hadn't seen Tony in more than a week, and three governments kept persistently calling with bids for his latest repulsor engines, regardless of how many times she'd told them no. "There's almost an ownership mentality," she agreed, passing Peggy the marmalade. "As if the Avengers don't each have lives of their own."

Dipping her knife into the marmalade, Peggy scraped it almost savagely across her toast until the crumbs flew. She'd had every intention of going on this last mission, but her schedule and a sudden deluge of work had left her stranded stateside.

"I suppose that's one thing that hasn't changed all that much," she decided, taking a sticky bite and licking her lips. "Regardless of ideology, the people at the top still tend to take advantage of their assets and forget they're human too."

Pepper nodded, stirring her yogurt meditatively.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Busy schedule notwithstanding, Steve and Peggy did find time to have a rather satisfactory, if low-key, Valentine's Day. Steve had got home late from a mission, but managed to get his hands on a bunch of roses, showing up at Peggy's office still dressed in his uniform with his hands full of flowers.

"Happy Valentine's Day," he told her, a little shyly, as she reeled him into her office and shut the door in case any uninformed Stark Industries employee happened to be passing by. "Sorry I'm late. You busy?"

It was far too late to go out, and both were more interested in spending time with each other than traipsing around New York City, so they ended up going back to their suite. Peggy put the flowers in water, and Steve changed out of his uniform, and then they turned on some music and Peggy kicked off her heels with great determination and tried to teach him to dance the Charleston in their living room.

The dance lesson in and of itself was an epic failure. The captain had become pretty good at slower dances like the waltz or foxtrot, but the fast ones were trickier for him. He ended up tripping them both over and over, until at last Peggy could only press her forehead into his shoulder and giggle helplessly while he tried to apologize.

"I love you," she laughed at last, leaning back to look up at him. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes bright, lips the same tint as the velvety roses she'd proudly set on the mantlepiece. "I love you."

Those three words coming from her always made Steve's heart skip. "Even though I can't dance this thing worth beans?" he asked teasingly, and loved the way she wrinkled up her nose at him.

"Yes, even though you can't dance the Charleston 'worth beans,'" she repeated, and then rose up on her stockinged toes to settle closer into his arms and wait for a slower song as the still-playing music swept merrily around them both.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Now that Helen Cho's cradle project had been proven to work, Tony wouldn't shut up about it. He stripped off his shirt at dinnertime, proudly displaying the fresh, pale expanse of synthetic skin. It was still dimpled and textured from the underlying scarring, but it looked more normal than it had since the fateful day in Afghanistan that had resulted in the birth of Iron Man.

"Argh," groaned Clint, covering his eyes with one hand. "Is there a reason for this? I came for pizza and a movie, not a Stark stripping act."

Pepper snorted inelegantly into her soft drink. Tony tried to look injured and failed completely. "No, this is brilliantly important, guys. This is millions of digitally replicated, fully integratable epidermal cell simulacra."

"Fake skin," Steve said in an aside to Clint, who was blinking.

Stark's finger stabbed indignantly in the captain's direction. "That," he protested, "is a gross oversimplification. This invention will change the face of medicine forever."

Doctor Cho had returned to Korea - she had a very important medical conference to attend, but she had left some of her equipment in Banner's lab. They had made plans to co-author a paper on her work when she came back. Privately, Steve wondered just how much of the good doctor's interest stemmed from the fact that Thor lived in the building.

Team dinner and movie nights had been Pepper's idea. Steve wasn't sure whether she was trying to get Tony to be more social, or if she was trying to bring the Avengers together as a group on the rare occasions when conflicting schedules and missions allowed it, but he had no objection either way. Handing Peggy her plate of food, he put his plate on the couch cushion next to her to save his place and went back to the kitchen to pour drinks. He had half-playfully offered to bring down a jug of milk, but she had firmly declined.

In the kitchen, Bruce edged closer. The others were by the television, bickering over what movie to watch, so the two men had a brief moment of privacy.

"So, what did the doctor say?" Bruce finally asked, shifting his feet. Surprised and a little alarmed, Steve very nearly sloshed root beer across the counter.

"About what?" he asked, and then a sudden stab of concern caught him off guard and he spilled his drink after all. "Peggy's not sick, is she?"

Bruce frowned. "No, she's - did she not tell you?" The man looked like he was about to sink through the floor with mortification, and Steve suddenly realized what he was talking about.

"Yeah, she told me," he grinned involuntarily, reaching for a rag to wipe up the spill.

Banner heaved a little sigh of relief and shifted his feet, though his eyebrows still looked concerned. "So, you haven't been to a doctor at all?

"You." Steve offered a glass to the suddenly wide-eyed man. "Want any root beer?"

Bruce stammered. "Um, I'm really not that kind of doctor. What you need is an obstetrician."

"I'm expecting a baby, not sick," Peggy interrupted, startling both men with her quiet approach. She stole a sip of Steve's root beer and then made a face. "Tastes like cough medicine," she commented dryly, reaching past him for the lemonade.

Bruce still looked vaguely alarmed. "You actually really should go see one. They'll check up on you and the baby, take ultrasounds, make sure everything's going well."

Peggy lifted a skeptical eyebrow. Steve, on the other hand, was interested.

"I think we should see one of those doctors," he told her after Bruce had beaten a retreat.

"I'm not sick," Peggy repeated for what felt like the thousandth time, tasting the lemonade cautiously. Apparently it was more to her liking than the root beer, because she took a long drink, leaning against the counter, eyes challenging him over the rim of her glass. "This is normal, Steve - women have been doing this for a very, very long time."

"Doing what?" asked Tony, popping around the corner. "Come on, you two - show's starting."

"Coming," Steve promised. When Stark vanished, he turned back to their conversation, lowering his voice as he reached to refill his glass. "We're hardly normal, Peg," he reminded her. He knew she hated hospitals, but this was different. This was their baby. "If your mother was still alive, or mine, we could go to them with questions, but they aren't, and neither of us know the first thing about this. Besides, we've both been frozen, and my cells are altered and you've got my blood. We're very far from normal."

He was right, and he knew Peggy knew it. She sighed, pursing her lips. "I'll ask Bruce for a recommendation later," she finally gave in. "Though heaven knows when I'll find time to actually get an appointment. Anyway, there's no hurry - at this point it's probably far too small for them to be able to feel anything significant." She tilted her head, dismissing the subject for the moment. "In the meantime, my dinner is getting cold, and I think the show's starting."

Much later, while watching the movie, she fell asleep on his shoulder. Steve threaded his arm a little more securely around her waist, gently spreading his hand over her abdomen. Somewhere, deep down beneath his palm, his kid was growing.

He didn't realize he was smiling until the show took a mournful turn and he caught Natasha giving him a weird look for beaming cheerfully through the saddest scene in the movie.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hello, peoples. I apologize for the wait. My grandmother died right before Easter, and since she's one of my big inspirations for writing Peggy Carter, I've had a really hard time writing anything besides reunion scenes and sad things involving Peggy growing old and having Alzheimer's and dying - and this chapter needed to be happy. But life moves on, and things are better now, and I know I'll see my grandma again someday. So here you go, and thanks ever so much for your kind comments and patience. If any of you are still reading this, know that I value you more than I can say.**

 **Onwards and upwards!**

 **Oh, and if any of you are wondering why Peggy hasn't gone straight off to see a doctor, remember she's a woman from 1940's Britain. Many pregnant women of her time didn't see a doctor until they were around four months along, because doctors and hospitals were more associated with illness. If you'd like to know more, I can send you references for the materials I consulted on the topic.**

* * *

 **ChildofGod: Ha! Loved your reaction. :D And in response to your recent comment on** _ **Opposites**_ **, I too am missing the 1940's feel. You'll be glad to know that I've got some WWII era stuff in the works!**

 **Olivia52: Thank you! I do try.**

 **Guest (1): You're welcome! Thanks for commenting!**

 **Laughy Taffy: Ohhh, you'll have to wait and see! As for responding - well, I figure if you folks go out of your way to leave me comments, the least I can do to show my appreciation is by replying to you. :D (Those sugar roosters sound really fun - I looked up pictures!)**

 **S.M: Aww, I'm so glad you liked it! Thanks for stopping by!**

 **Suzane: Thank you so much!**

 **Guest (2): Oh, you're going to have to wait a little longer for that one. :)**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

To be perfectly honest, Peggy was the one who started it.

Well, an argument could be made for Tony, though he wasn't directly at fault. The eccentric billionaire, caught up in single-minded focus on his work, had drained the entire tower's reserves of hot water for some project or other - which meant that precisely forty seconds into Steve Roger's shower, the captain was suddenly hit with a blast of ice-cold water to the face that left him blank-eyed and gasping, a shocked profanity hissing unconsciously between his teeth.

"Language," Peggy admonished crisply from beyond the shower curtain, where she was getting ready for the day in front of the bathroom mirror.

Slipping, scrambling, Steve finally managed to shut off the icy deluge, and then leaned his head against the wall beside the tap for a moment, soap running down his face and into his eyes as he willed his heart rate to normalize.

 _Breathe in. Breathe out._

Eventually, Peggy's warning filtered through the layers of his consciousness. Swallowing, Steve blinked and unclenched his fists, and then stuck his head out from behind the shower curtain to look at her.

"Sorry, don't think I caught that," he confessed, shivering and trying to get his lungs working properly again; the shock of being unexpectedly doused in cold water had seemingly locked them in place. He wiped the soap out of his stinging eyes. "Water in my ears. What did you say?"

"I said 'language,'" Peggy confirmed, taking the pins out of her hair and shaking the resulting curls over her shoulder. He was grateful when she deliberately didn't inquire the reason for his outburst, keeping her voice light though her eyes in the mirror were grave and understanding. "With an impressionable new member of our family on its way, I do think we should be more careful regarding our vocabulary - although heaven only knows what we'll do about Tony."

The thought of their baby and the sight of his wife lit a warm place in the middle of Steve's chest, and he found himself able to breathe a little more easily, despite the freezing drops still running down his spine. She always had been so good at bringing him down to earth again after an episode like this.

"Good thinking," he conceded, retreating back behind the curtain again. He eyed the shower head dubiously and wondered whether or not it would freeze him again if he turned it on. "I'll watch my mouth, but you'll need to watch yours too."

Peggy scoffed from beyond the shower curtain. "I'll have you know that I never curse," she pointed out primly, and then turned on the hair dryer to drown out the sound of her husband laughing.

In the weeks since then, it became a bit of a private joke - a lighthearted back-and-forth banter between just the two of them, although it rather backfired on Peggy. Steve rarely swore unless severely startled or moved by strong feeling, but she was far more given to expressing herself with the colorful adjectives of her home country.

" _Steve_ ," she protested more than once. "That doesn't count as a swear word - not in America, anyway."

"Oh, so you'd rather have our kid swearing in British?" Steve would shake his head, eyes teasing, face carefully grave. "We're counting it, Peggy. Can't be too careful."

They were in the middle of one such discussion some time later, when Peggy playfully swatted at him and he dodged, accidentally scattering the meeting agendas she'd been sorting. Still chuckling at Peggy's very British indignation, Steve stooped to pick them up. Then he stilled, looking down at the last paper in his hand. "What's this meeting about, anyway?"

Whisking the paper out of his grasp, Peggy tapped it neatly into place with the rest. "I'm not entirely sure," she admitted. "But Maria Hill had some information she felt needed to be presented to the entire team."

"Hill?" Steve frowned, and then nodded. "She was a good agent before the crash. Whatever she has to say, it's probably important."

"Mmm," Peggy agreed, leaning into him and thanking him with a kiss, though she still had the combative gleam in her eye that let him know she was by no means letting the language issue go. "It had better be. Trying to wrangle Tony into coming to a meeting while Pepper's away is a job and a half."

Steve kissed her back - and then again, only pulling away when Thor's footsteps in the hallway outside announced the arrival of the rest of the team.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"We've got an anonymous tip about a Hydra base in Sokovia," Maria Hill announced, dragging up a file onto her screen so the team could see it better.

Clint raised his head without actually lifting his eyes from the pad he was doodling on - something that looked a bit like a floorplan. "And what makes this tip any different from the one in Australia and the one in Mumbai and the one in Arkansas?"

Maria Hill folded her arms across her chest. "Because this time they're pretty sure it's more than just a base. At the very least we'll find Chitauri artifacts. At best - maybe the scepter."

Thor, who had only half been paying attention, suddenly snapped into focus with such intensity that the lights flickered and the metal pens on the table let off sparks. The room fairly crackled with suppressed energy. He had never stopped looking for the weapon his brother had once wielded so efficiently, but none of the leads had ever gone anywhere.

Peggy ignored the images on the screen in lieu of watching Maria's face carefully. The other woman gave nothing away.

Peggy Rogers was never quite sure what to think of Maria Hill. As the head of the tower's security, she was around quite a bit, and the two women were often thrown together. Just as Peggy worked closely with Pepper Potts on matters regarding the Avengers, so Maria worked with Pepper on Stark Industries security and public imaging.

She was a dedicated woman, with a very common-sense attitude and a biting streak of sarcasm, but while Peggy had a lot of respect for her, she could never quite seem to forget that this woman had been the one to press the button that shot Steve out of the sky in Washington. Not that Peggy would have been able to do any differently in her position, but even so, it wasn't something she could easily disregard.

They also tended to disagree on things. Both Peggy and Maria were strong-willed and brilliant, so their clashes usually ended with them both deciding on a third, completely new and far better option. Yet Maria always seemed to know just a little bit too much about things, and sometimes it felt suspicious to Peggy.

After all, this woman had once worked for SHIELD, although she had left in the wake of the D.C. disaster. Now she had pulled this tip out of thin air - and Peggy hadn't heard a thing about it until this instant.

"Slovakia?" asked Tony, twirling his tablet on his finger.

"Sokovia," Steve corrected, looking across at Peggy. "I didn't know it was its own country these days. One of those little places in Eastern Europe. Language is close enough to Czech or Slovak that we could scrape by."

"You're talking like you've been there." Natasha's eyes were sharp. Steve didn't answer, but Peggy nodded.

"We passed through in '44," she explained. "And then I went back later with the Commandos to clear out a Hydra base they'd established after the war. The whole country is riddled with an underground cave system."

"So they're underground?" asked Thor, but Steve shook his head.

"There's a central fortress," he explained, tapping on the map Maria brought up on the screen. "I'm betting they're in there again."

"I should have let Dernier blow it up after all," Peggy remarked dryly. The Frenchman had been poised to attack the fortress with a few well-placed explosives, but she had turned down the idea. Anything big enough to damage the huge, centuries-old building would certainly be enough to devastate the city around it, and she didn't want any more people hurt.

Tony flipped his phone casually between his fingers. "So it's simple then - attack the fortress. Easy."

Steve and Peggy both turned identical flat stares in his direction. "We'll have to come in from outside of town," Steve corrected him, even as Peggy began highlighting areas on the map. "The caves provide outlets - if we attack the fortress, they'll just come up through the caves and either escape or come at us from the rear."

"We should approach from here," Peggy pointed out, batting distractedly at Steve's elbow until she had his attention. "Then come around this way - that entrance will most likely be closed…"

Clint grinned, shaking his head as he watched the two of them buckle down to planning. No matter how many times he had seen this over the last few months, it never failed to impress him.

Steve Rogers was a born tactician, and Peggy Carter Rogers had years of experience in ground warfare and strategy under her belt. Between the two of them, and with Natasha to figure out the angle from the air, they were able to figure out plans of attack in less time than the best strategists SHIELD had to offer.

Coulson would have got a kick out of it, he was certain.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

They were alone in the prep room, getting ready for the upcoming flight to Sokovia when Peggy straightened suddenly. "The baby's moving again," she reported, eyebrows puckering a little as her hand flew to her stomach.

Steve only had half of his uniform on, but immediately sprang into abrupt action, dropping his armful of gear with a crash as he scrambled to her, skidding on his knees to her side and letting her position his eager hands on her body. For the longest moment he held his breath, waiting, but then Peggy's red-tipped fingers slackened and fell away.

"I can't feel it anymore," she admitted, unable to keep from smiling a little as her husband raised crestfallen blue eyes to her face. "It was barely more than a flutter, anyway."

Steve hadn't moved his hands away, and now he bent closer, addressing her stomach.

"Hey there," he cajoled, and his hands shifted, settling even closer than before. "One kick for your old man, will you? Just one?"

Even Peggy held her breath this time. She _did_ feel a faint stir, deep inside, but evidently it wasn't enough for Steve to detect. Disappointed, he sat back on his heels at last. "At this rate our kid'll be born before I feel a thing."

Ever since Peggy had felt the first flutters of movement, barely a week before, Steve had been so eager, so impatient to feel the evidence of new life growing within her. Peggy kept telling him it was too early, but that didn't stop him from trying.

Stooping, Peggy dropped a compassionate kiss on the captain's head. "Don't be so gloomy," she advised cheerily. "You'll feel something soon enough. For now I suppose she's just a Mummy's girl."

She shrugged on her jacket and reached for her most comfortable mission shoes, but Steve stayed on his knees, still only half dressed in his combat gear and watching her with the glowing, hopeful expression he got whenever he was thinking about their baby - and whenever he wasn't worrying about his own adequacy as a father.

"You think it's a girl?" he asked.

Peggy paused, considering. "Truthfully, I haven't any idea. I change my mind every other day. Would you like a daughter?"

Steve got up, dragging his uniform top over his head and emerging with his hair sticking every which way. "I'd love one," he admitted, fumbling with the twisted straps over his shoulders until Peggy took pity on him and came to help him straighten them out. "But I'd love a son too." He ducked his head, and Peggy could feel his eyes on her face as she yanked at the leather strap to tighten the buckle over his shoulder. "The important part is that they look exactly like you."

They'd had this conversation many times before, and Steve always insisted that the baby would look like her. Privately, Peggy hoped their child would take after her husband - but only time would tell.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Things moved quickly, as they always did in cases like this. Thirteen hours after the initial tip, they were entering Sokovian airspace. Peggy had spent the time negotiating with NATO and arranging for a team to meet them in case of any prisoners.

"Banner, you stay on the quinjet. If we can hang on to the element of surprise, this won't have to turn into a Code Green." Steve adjusted his shield on his arm. "Barton, you're with Romanoff. Stark, take out the border guards and then head straight to the fortress, but stay low so their sensors can't pick you up."

Tony raised a cocky eyebrow from the corner of the quinjet where his suit was assembling around him. "You do your job, Cap, and let me do mine, okay?"

Thor frowned, pacing back and forth, a distinct feeling of unease clinging to the back of his mind. He was not as talented at sensing the world around him as his - well, as some people were, but there was definitely something in the air. His fingers flexed around Mjölnir's handle until the leather bindings creaked. Perhaps this was it, the end of his search.

"So where's Peggy going to go?"

Clint was the only one who had thought to ask. It was a fair question; as liaison with SHIELD, she split her time between joining the Avengers on the ground and staying in the air. Still, here in Sokovia, she was one of the few people who knew her way around.

Steve met Peggy's eyes, but he didn't answer. For a long moment they looked at each other, silently conversing, and then he stepped backward half a step, eyes steady, hands open. It was her choice.

Peggy bit her lips. For as long as she could remember, she had fought for a life of adventure, and the idea of sitting back and letting other people take the front line was incredibly hard for her. Still, her tactical uniform no longer fit correctly and only that morning she had needed to let her belt out another notch - a poignant reminder of the little life that was so wholly dependant upon her. If anything happened - if some Hydra agent got a lucky blow in and hurt her baby - she knew she would never forgive herself.

"I'll be on the jet with Banner; coordinate from the air."

Half the people on the bridge didn't even notice the exchange, and those who did thought little of it. Steve was the only one who knew what it cost her. His fingers ghosted across her back as she turned to busy herself with the data screens, and she leaned back into his touch, meeting his understanding gaze with a smile.

"Right," the captain checked his ammunition one more time as the jet began to land. "Agent, you'll have our backs from here. Stay in touch."

Peggy swept him up and down with her eyes. "You too, Captain," she replied briskly, and watched as he left the jet with the others.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

It had been a Code Green after all. Peggy hadn't needed to bring the hovering quinjet down - Bruce merely swallowed hard and jumped from the open hatch, turning green well before he landed. Peggy had stayed by the monitors, watching the feeds from Tony's helmet and the imaging satellite overhead and calling directions through the comms system.

"Standby for medevac," Steve directed over his link, and she hit the controls, standing well away from the opening in the side as the alien prince hurtled in, carrying the badly-wounded Barton.

"Put him there," she commanded, pointing to the gurney. She had set it up as soon as the call came that he'd been hurt, and everything was ready for the injured man. Thor was as gentle as he knew how, but Clint groaned, panting heavily as they settled him into place.

It had been years since her training as a nurse, and most of that training had merely been a cover for her undercover work with the SOE, but Peggy still retained the most important things. After all, she had spent a large part of her adult life in a war zone, and she was no stranger to treating wounded men. Thor too, had fought on many a battlefield, if one could believe all his stories, and he had a cool head. Even as Peggy slipped an IV into Clint's arm and reached for the XSTAT syringe, Thor was pulling away the archer's vest, baring the wound before applying heavy pressure. Together they did their best to slow the blood flow and make their friend comfortable.

With Barton finally stabilized, Peggy returned to the controls, pulling off her bloody latex gloves and directing JARVIS to bring the quinjet down in a secure location. Then she went back to her previous job, contacting the NATO team which was due to arrive on-site in half an hour, and connecting them directly with the captain's comm link so they could coordinate their efforts to catch Strucker.

Natasha was the first to make it back, accompanying a shaky, pale Banner, who pulled away as soon as he could and retreated to the far corner of the plane, fumbling desperately with the coiled cords of his headphones.

The Black Widow went straight to Clint's side, brushing his knuckles with the tips of her fingers. Her expression was more closed off than usual, almost severe - only her eyes betrayed her worry. "Don't make me call them," she murmured in Russian. The archer's face was creased in deep lines, but his eyelids momentarily flickered open at her touch, and he seemed to relax a little.

"Not this time," he rasped briefly in the same language. Pain pulled at the corners of his mouth and dragged at his cheeks. "I'll make it."

They probably said more, but Peggy chose not to listen, drifting discreetly out of hearing distance before either of them remembered that she understood the language. Their relationship wasn't something she could quite figure out. It was obvious to anybody with eyes that the two former SHIELD assassins had strong feelings for each other, but it was the nature of those feelings that nobody could determine for certain.

In his corner, Banner finally got his headphones on, clamping a trembling hand over each earpiece, rocking back and forth with his eyes tightly squeezed shut. Peggy stepped near enough to drop a blanket around his shoulders before retreating again. He would need his space.

It was some time before Steve climbed in. He had needed to negotiate with the NATO officials who had finally begun to arrive in the Avengers' wake and to whom he had turned Strucker over. "Stark back?" he asked, and Peggy shook her head, stepping closer to scan him for injuries. He waved away her concern, glancing over to where Natasha still bent over Clint. "I'm fine. How is he?"

"Alive," Natasha answered bluntly. She wasn't much of a person for sugarcoating things. "Stable for now, but we need to get him back ASAP. Where's Stark?"

"He said he found something," Steve started, but just then Thor reacted suddenly to a stimulus nobody else could see, throwing up his head with a jerk and whirling toward the open hatch. His hammer flew to his hand as the sound of repulsors grew louder, and then Iron Man landed at the base of the ramp.

The deadly blue curve of the elusive scepter was held fast in his gauntlet.

For just a moment, nobody moved. This had been such a central part to their search for so long, that it seemed impossible it was finally safe. Peggy frankly stared, the only one of the group who had never seen it in person. Steve squared his shoulders and shifted almost unconsciously, placing himself between his wife and the innate danger that the scepter presented.

Thor was the first one to break the spell, stepping quickly forward, reaching out a hand.

"Give me the scepter," he rumbled. "It is not for men to touch."

"Yeah, well, technically I'm not touching it." Stark's voice was tinny over the speakers. He sounded almost jittery, but it was hard to tell. "The suit's touching it. Besides, you're the brother of the guy who went berserk in the first place. Relax - I'll just put it in the case, okay?"

Thor hesitated and then reluctantly relented, although he hovered protectively until the dangerous object had been laid in the specially-made case and the cover securely fastened. Then and only then did he finally unbend, laying his hammer on the floor with a sigh. For just a moment, the alien looked every one of his many years.

Tony stepped out of the suit, and reached for the controls. "Everybody done souvenir shopping?" he inquired cockily, and when nobody answered, he gunned the engines, an oddly apprehensive look flickering behind his eyes as the jet took off.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Later, as the quinjet cruised over the ocean towards home, Peggy slid into the seat at her husband's side. During the fight, she had heard Steve automatically correct Stark's swearing, and had since been waiting to confront him about it.

"Language?" she murmured into his ear, arching a bemused eyebrow.

Steve looked up from the report he was already composing, ears turning a little pink at the realization she'd heard his earlier exchange with Stark over the comms. Stark had sworn, and without thinking, Steve had corrected him. "It just slipped out," he admitted sheepishly, keeping his voice low so the roar of the engines covered their conversation.

Peggy dimpled, and reached for his tablet. He let her take it.

"You know they'll never let you live it down," she pointed out as she flipped through her captain's report. Lines of fine type detailed the evidence of inhumane human experimentation that Steve had seen in the building, and Peggy felt her stomach twist.

Steve shook his head ruefully and then saw what she was reading and sobered. The topic of human experimentation was a sensitive one for both of them. Peggy had worked side by side with Dr. Abraham Erskine, and Steve had voluntarily offered himself up as a guinea pig for science, and _that_ had been all right - but then Erskine had been murdered and Bucky had been captured and forcibly altered in the most brutal and dehumanizing of ways, and ever since then people had hurt themselves and others trying to recreate the elusive serum.

It made them both sick to encounter such terrible travesties, done in the name of the humble doctor they had both respected.

"Strucker must've finally done something right, though," he mused aloud as Peggy finally reached the end of his half-written report. He lightly touched her arm with his fingertips, knuckles still a little bruised from the fight. "Probably due to the scepter. Those two Enhanced - never seen anything like them."

Peggy tipped back her head. "How did they look?" she asked.

Steve considered his answer with care. He had barely caught more than a fleeting glimpse of the male, but the female…

"Young," he answered at last, briefly, and put his arm around his wife. "They looked young."

Near the rear of the quinjet, Natasha crouched next to Bruce, talking to him softly, though she still kept a close eye on her wounded companion. Up at the controls, Tony Stark and Thor seemed to be caught up in another one of their endless discussions. This time it seemed to be about the magnetizing effect of lightening on Mjölnir - or at least, that was Steve's best guess, given the amount of scientific and Asgardian mumbo-jumbo that was filtering back from their position.

"...so wait," Tony's voice floated back to them in a fragment of a sentence. "If you're holding a metal bar, and you suddenly summon lightning, what effect will the electricity have on the magnetic alignment of…"

He kept going, but Steve didn't even try to follow the conversation. They were alive, and together - and they had achieved their goal. Turning his head a little, he pressed a firm, weary kiss against Peggy's hairline, and she relaxed into his side, confident in the knowledge that she was his, and he was hers.

Steve spread his palm a little more securely across Peggy's side, and looked down at her speculatively. She wouldn't be able to hide her condition much longer - that was for certain.

The scepter was found, and the fight was over. The Avengers had won at long last, and now it was time for another adventure to begin.

Parenthood.

Warm anticipation flooded his chest. Steve Rogers couldn't wait.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **People! I have survived! Thanks ever so much for all the patience and kind messages - y'all are the best ever. As a side note, I have successfully negotiated my graduation! You may all call me Master Mellia now. :) (Totally kidding; you don't have to call me that. I'm just excited!)**

 **The XSTAT syringe that Peggy used on Clint is actually a really cool thing that the FDA first approved for battlefield medical use in 2015. Basically, it's a syringe full of little sponges that, when injected into a large wound, swell and apply pressure from** _ **inside**_ **the wound, stopping blood flow. It's approved for use on wounds where tourniquets can't be applied, and helps stabilize the person until they can get sufficient medical help.**

 **(Agents of Shield spoilers) AOS 2.19 made it clear that Agent Coulson was the source for the tip Maria Hill received about the scepter's location.**

 **Special thanks to denyz when it comes to all things Sokovian and Slovak, both here and in future chapters. (Shoutout: denyz writes Superman stories, if you like that sort of thing.) For the purposes of this fic, Sokovia is located near Slovakia and the Czech Republic. This works with the location supposedly shown on computer screens in Age of Ultron, but it does conflict with the Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic writing on the buildings in the movie, which indicates a more eastern location. Just bear with me, okay? It's a fictional country - I'm doing my best here.**

* * *

 **S.M: Aww, I'm glad the chapter could make your day better! You're so kind. :) Yes, things are doing much better now - time has a way of helping in that respect. And hugs are always, always welcome. Thank you!**

 **Guest: I think you've hit the nail right on the head when it comes to Ultron and Vision. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out in future chapters.**

 **Laughy Taffy: Hello! Hey, I don't mind late reviews at all - spreads the love around a little. :) Ice cream! Oh, you've found my weakness. *Collapses dramatically* And oooh, I really like the idea of doing something with Norman Rockwell. If that doesn't fit in this story, I should find somewhere else to put it, because I love his paintings. Thank you!**

 **Guest: Thanks! I'll do my best!**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Elizabeth Carter?"

Peggy got up, throwing Steve an encouraging smile as she turned toward the doorway, where the nurse who had called her name stood blandly watching. Steve squeezed her hand gently before she got quite out of his reach, and watched until she disappeared behind the white door at the end of the waiting room. Then he leaned back in the torturously cramped chair, shoving at the glasses that kept sliding down his nose.

They had registered under their middle names and Peggy's maiden name in an attempt to avoid any unwanted publicity. The world didn't need to know yet that Captain America had a wife, let alone a pregnant one. She had almost laughed her head off the first time she'd seen Steve in those ridiculous fake glasses, but they seemed to work. Nobody had recognized him yet, anyway.

" _You don't have to come with me, Steve,"_ she had protested. " _To be completely frank, they probably won't let you past the waiting room."_

Steve understood.

He was the son of a nurse who had helped more than one woman in the tenement building give birth. Their husbands usually sat in the tiny apartment he shared with his mother, sweating and pacing and waiting anxiously for the ordeal to be over. Childbirth was something presided over by women, but he wanted to give Peggy all the support he possibly could.

And if that meant waiting in the bland, uncomfortable waiting room at the obstetrician's office, thumbing through the well-worn magazines on the end table and shaking his head over the months-old sensational and totally erroneous reports of Pepper and Stark's third secret marriage, then so be it.

Dropping the magazine back where it had come from, Steve crossed his arms and looked around the waiting room. Whoever had picked out the pictures on the walls had an eclectic taste - they seemed mostly to consist of cowboys riding dolphins through marvelously-colored waves. Idly, Steve pondered whether or not there was some pop culture reference which could explain them, but if there was, it eluded him entirely.

"Grant Carter?"

For a moment he didn't recognize the false name he had given as his own. Then Steve felt his heart contract in his chest, and he was on his feet. The nurse who had called his name showed no reaction to his alarm. Instead, she simply turned around and walked down the long white hall beyond the doors, apparently expecting him to follow her.

Steve wasted no time in hurrying after her.

"Is everything okay?" he demanded, following closely upon the nurse's heels as they entered the examination room, looking around slightly wildly for his wife. His pulse was very loud in his ears. Something had happened, something was wrong - the baby wasn't well…

Peggy's face, when he found it, was quite serene, if a little amused, and Steve felt his heart rate settle at once as the doctor explained. Apparently it was quite normal, in this century, for the father to be present as much as he liked.

The captain immediately claimed the chair at his wife's side. A fleet of Chitauri couldn't have moved him at that moment.

Doctor Winters was an older man, very good-natured, with ruddy cheeks and twinkling eyes that left Steve with the vague impression that the short physician could have doubled as Santa Claus. The man had a rather disconcerting habit of calling them "Mom" and "Dad," but other than that he seemed to be quite capable and attentive, and came with good references. He carefully examined Peggy, and his eyes got very wide when she mentioned how far along they calculated she was.

"My dear," he interrupted. "And you haven't come in at all before this?"

Peggy tried to elusively explain her poor health and Steve's supposed inability to father children, without giving away either their identities or their unusual medical background, and the doctor listened patiently until she was done. Then he shook his head slowly.

"Well, it's an amazing story. Let's have a look, see what it looks like, all right?"

"Have a look?" Steve interrupted, distrustfully eyeing the machinery in the room. Vague images of the chair that Hydra had used to torture Bucky brushed across the edges of his mind, but he pushed them away. "Look at what?"

The doctor laughed, a full, jolly sound. "Why, at your baby, of course."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

There were a lot of amazing things about the modern age. Food was available and widely varied, transportation had reached unimagined heights, polio was gone and smallpox was cureable. But the most wonderful thing of all, in Steve Rogers' mind at least, was the sonogram.

At first it was just a rapidly shifting sea of grey. Steve and Peggy, both familiar with the principle of picking things out on a radar screen, narrowed their eyes in concentration, trying to find some faint blip that might indicate the presence of their child.

Instead, they suddenly saw a face swim into focus - streaked with static, but undeniably a face - a perfect little profile with a forehead and nose and chin.

The image blurred, and Steve blinked the moisture out of his eyes, staring at the screen. "Peggy," he said unsteadily, and heard her shuddering breath beside him.

The little thing on the screen suddenly moved, turning its head and pulling one hand up beside its face.

Fingers. Their baby had fingers. Steve blinked hard again, swiping a hand across his cheeks. If he had loved their child before, now he cared for it a thousand times more. This little person had fingers and toes and a little nose and mouth, complete in every way. Inside its chest, a tiny heart fluttered, and he felt his own heart turn over in response.

Doctor Winters mumbled inaudibly under his breath, making notes on the chart before shifting the sensors. "Let's see," he mused as the image on the screen swam dizzyingly in and out. It was a trifle unsettling to see their child appear and disappear in what seemed to be a collection of random body parts. "Just right - here… We should be able to tell by now..."

He paused and then beamed suddenly. "There we go," he said, pulling a little collapsible pointer out of his pocket and extending it with a practiced movement. "Would you like to know the gender?"

Steve could only stare. It was Peggy who answered for them both, her astonished incredulity almost thick enough to cut with a knife. "You can tell?"

The doctor looked vaguely affronted. "Well, yes," he replied, brandishing his little pointer. "Of course, you have to allow for human error," he amended quickly, "but as long as the baby's in a good position, which yours is..."

"Yes," Steve interrupted firmly, his heart bounding giddily. If this was truly possible - "What is it?" he asked.

Doctor Winters bounced on his toes and pointed to the fuzzy screen. "Congratulations, Mom and Dad," he announced, all but glowing. "It's a boy. He's a little smaller than I'd expected from your estimated conception date, but that shouldn't be a problem."

A _son_.

Startling warmth jolted violently in Steve's chest, and he reached blindly for his wife's hand. Beside him, Peggy wore the expression of intense concentration that she got when she was trying to fix something in her mind. "This is real?" she suddenly demanded. "This - our baby - that's really what he looks like?"

A little puzzled at her reaction, the doctor nodded reassuringly. "That's your son," he said. Steve choked softly, staring at the blotch on the screen before turning to look at his best girl. Her eyes were shining with a liquid joy that he'd never exactly seen from her before. Hesitant to hug her for fear of jarring the equipment, the captain bent his head to press a fervent kiss against her knuckles.

Then they sat, hands tightly entwined, and watched their precious baby boy.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

They went dancing that evening. Peggy had one nice dress left that could still fit without making her condition overwhelmingly apparent, and Steve surprised her with flowers.

He had developed quite the talent for finding places that still played live music. Tonight it was a little hole-in-the-wall place down in Queens - a little on the rough side, but it would do. Peggy spun easily into his arms, fitting comfortably against his side as he guided her across the floor in a slow foxtrot. Steve would probably never be an excellent dancer, but he had improved quite a bit since their first dance, and they worked well together.

"Figures it would be a boy," Peggy murmured. Steve beamed happily down at her, holding her close as they navigated the crowded room. When she was pressed against him like that, he could feel the hidden curve of their baby protected between them.

"Why, you wanted a girl?" he asked, spinning her around. She laughed, shaking her head at him.

"I'm not at all sure I would know what to do with one," she admitted. "I've spent my whole life surrounded by men."

They danced a little longer before she swatted him softly, the palm of her hand firm against his lapel. "You look like the cat that caught the canary, darling," she purred into his ear. "Are you going to keep smiling like that all evening?"

"Probably." Steve was not at all ashamed. He was absolutely thrilled. He wouldn't be the last of his line after all. A tangle of bicycles and baseball and paperback books ran through his head, all the best things from his childhood that he hoped to pass on to a kid of his own.

Provided there was time, of course.

"Peggy," he said later. They had taken a table and were sipping their drinks, watching the dancers on the floor.

"Mmm?" She raised her eyebrows inquiringly at him over the rim of her glass. "Are we going to get anything to eat? I'm starved."

He grinned, shoving the menu across the table toward her, and then his face took on a more serious cast. "I've been thinking."

"Heaven help us all," Peggy murmured dryly, examining the appetizers with interest.

"No, this is serious," Steve protested laughingly before sobering. "I - Peggy, when I joined the army, I was given the mission to defeat Hydra."

Her attention caught, Peggy laid the menu aside, focusing on her husband. He had the determined set to his jaw that meant he had made up his mind about something, and the cautious look in his eyes that meant he wasn't quite sure how she would take it.

"After I went down," he continued slowly, feeling his way, "I ended up here, and they asked me to recapture the Tesseract. Then Hydra showed up again, and I had to take care of that."

He looked up at her, and his eyes were very blue. "Peggy, we found the scepter and Strucker's alien stash. This ends the Hydra threat. It's over. I've finally completed my mission."

Peggy reached for his hands. She remembered the feeling of disorientation when the war ended - the way the ground was snatched out from under everybody's feet as they tried to find something to do. "What are you thinking about?" she prompted softly.

He stared at their joined hands in the middle of the table, and gently rubbed her wedding ring with the edge of his thumb.

"For most fellows," he told her quietly, "the war ended and they could go home, start a family. I - Peg, I've been fighting for how long?" He looked up again from beneath his eyebrows. "No matter how I count my points, I got well over eighty-five."

His fingers drifted across her knuckles, tracing slow patterns over the backs of her hands, and she realized what he was trying to say.

"You're thinking about retiring."

It wasn't a question, but he nodded anyway. "Maybe not all the way," he admitted. "I'm not sure either of us could stay away completely. You could still be the Avenger's liaison, and I'd help with training or strategy, but - yeah. Out of active duty anyway." A flash of surprising youthfulness and hope sparked in his eyes. "Peggy, think about it. A place of our own, somewhere not too far away - a home for you and me and our son."

Steve's voice shook on the last word, and he took a deep breath to steady himself. Peggy squeezed his hands, and for a moment neither one said anything, both considering.

It was a big decision to make, but it wasn't just about the two of them anymore. Everything they did would directly affect the precious little life they had invited into the world. Peggy bit her lips, watching the man who held her hands, forcing herself to view him objectively.

Most people, looking at Steve Rogers, saw a good soldier. Peggy saw a good man, one who was willing to lay everything down for those he loved - and who hadn't had a true home since he was little more than a boy himself.

He _wanted_ this, so very, very badly.

"Give me your word it won't be boring," she finally ordered crisply, and laughed as he lit up with boyish joy.

"With you around?" he asked, adoring her with his eyes. "Never."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Sam Wilson came into town the day before Tony's big fling celebrating the scepter's recovery. He had been on a six-week wild goose chase digging through the records Peggy sent him and trying to catch up with cold leads on Bucky Barnes. The only hard evidence he had found was a blurry gasoline station security camera image showing a man that could have been Barnes - assuming Bucky's hair had grown past his shoulders and he had stolen a motorcycle.

To be completely honest, the photo could have been of anyone.

"Would have kept going, but I ran out of tips and my sister's having her baby any day," Sam confessed as Steve and Peggy examined the fuzzy picture from the security camera. He leaned back into the comfortable armchair he always claimed when coming to their place. "Gonna be an uncle, dude!"

Steve glanced sideways at his wife, and she shrugged. He would find out sooner or later.

"You'll be an uncle twice over, then," the captain announced, stretching out his legs and putting one arm around Peggy's shoulders.

Sam stared for a minute and then slapped his knees triumphantly, a huge grin breaking across his face. "You're kidding me! Really? Really?" He leaned forward, intently scrutinizing Peggy's midsection until Steve good-naturedly tossed a throw pillow at his head. "Wow, you hide it well."

Peggy tried not to be too obviously pleased. It was increasingly difficult to hide her growing pregnancy, and at this point she was depending largely on loose blouses and bulky sweaters, blaming their use on the fact that it was chilly outside and she still got cold easily.

"Who else knows?" demanded Sam. "Wow, baby Captain America - you gonna dress him in star spangled diapers?" He paused, faltering. "Him? Her? Twins?"

"Him," Steve confirmed. "We're telling everybody else soon - right now it's just you and Banner."

Sam was immensely pleased, although a little taken aback when Steve asked for a hand in navigating the real estate system.

"Maybe something nearby?" the captain suggested offhandedly, trying very hard not to look as if he cared too much, though he didn't fool anybody.

"Brooklyn," Peggy translated, toeing off her shoes and kicking them under the coffee table with a concealed sigh of relief. "He means something in Brooklyn."

Steve turned a little pink around the ears, a sure sign he was embarrassed. "I haven't had to look for housing since the '40's," he confessed. "SHIELD put me up, and then Stark took me in, but we're looking for something a little more…" he trailed off, searching for the right word. A Legionnaire shot past the window, and the plates in the cupboard rattled as a muffled explosion echoed from somewhere three floors down.

Evidently Tony was having a field day with something or other, down there in his lab.

Sam lifted an eyebrow. "Less explosive? Family friendly? Yeah, I get you." Cracking his knuckles over the keyboard, he grinned widely. "Let's see what your old Uncle Sam can set you up with." He paused and snickered over his own joke before continuing, ignoring the captain's deadpan stare. "Uncle Sam, get it? Captain America and Uncle Sam? You know," he deepened his voice theatrically, "'America wants you to do your duty…'"

Steve rubbed a hand over his face resignedly. "Sam, that joke is older than you are."

Sam shrugged, undaunted. "That means it's a good one, then," he argued, and ignored the rueful shake of the captain's head as Peggy laughed.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hi, people! For some reason I really stressed about posting this chapter - but I figure I've stared at it long enough. Here's hoping I didn't leave anything important out! Also, if you've left a review and I didn't reply, allow me to apologize profusely and sincerely. I really do try to respond to your reviews, but it's been one crazy ride on this end.**

 **When Steve talks about "counting his points," he's referring to the Advanced Service Rating Score, the system used after WWII to determine which soldiers got to go home first. Varying amounts of points were assigned to types and length of service/campaigns/battles the soldier had completed. Soldiers who had fought the longest and hardest would thus receive more points, and would be allowed to go home first. 85 points was one of the initial cutoffs, though the number would change later. And yes - as near as I can figure, Steve would have had at least 85 points, if not more. If anybody wants to calculate the exact number, I'll be happy to put your answer in here and credit you. :)**

* * *

 **Laughy Taffy: Awww, flowers! Thanks so much! :) (Regarding favorite soda pop - I usually go for fruit-flavored or lemonade or root beer.) Okay, funny story. You gave me the idea of Norman Rockwell, and the next time I went to the library, I found myself with his autobiography and biography open on the table in front of me, figuring out a timeline of when he and Steve Rogers could have met. … not quite sure how that happened. :) Anyway, it'll show up as soon as I have time to write it. (Haha!) Probably won't be in Cradle, though, just so you know.**

 **ChildofGod: Yay! I'm so glad you liked it. Knowing that I got you to laugh out loud is like icing on the cake. Hope this next bit measured up to expectations! Oh, and thanks for the congratulations. It's pretty exciting. :) And don't worry - I'm finally getting down and really making good headway on both your prompts! You know, from like - forever ago… (blushes, goes and hides)**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy frowned thoughtfully at herself in the mirror before nodding, satisfied. It was the fourth outfit she'd tried on that evening, and the only one that successfully concealed her changing shape without looking overwhelmingly frumpy. Stark had been planning the party tonight ever since the capture of the scepter a week before - some kind of victory and farewell celebration combined, before Thor returned with the scepter to Asgard.

"Steve?" she called, padding out of their bedroom in her stocking feet. Standing in heels was beginning to feel more cumbersome than she was willing to admit, even to herself. "Steve, we're going to be late."

"Scouts," Steve replied from the other room.

Puzzled, Peggy followed the sound and found him at the computer, dressed in his good shoes and slacks and an undershirt. Evidently an idea had seized him before he had finished dressing for the party.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Scouts," Steve repeated, frowning at the exorbitantly expensive housing options that scrolled by on the screen. He'd been looking for days, but nothing seemed to fit their budget and their desired criteria. "We need to pick a place with a good boy scout troop. I should call the district office, see if they have any stats I can look at."

Peggy summarily snapped the screen off. "Captain, in case you've forgotten, we have several months before our son even sees the light of day, and twenty minutes before Stark's party starts. Prioritize, for pity's sake."

Steve looked at the clock and visibly jerked in surprise. Slightly sheepish, he went to their closet, sorting through the clothes. Peggy followed and leaned against his shoulder.

"Wear the blue one," she suggested. Steve's chuckle rolled through her like a warm wave. It had taken a while for him to figure out how much she liked it when he wore shirts that matched his eyes.

"You look nice," he told her as he slipped his arms into the sleeves and started to do up the buttons. Peggy made a little face and playfully took him by the collar. Slipping the last button into the hole, she pretended to dust off his shoulders and then stood on her toes to finish it off with a quick peck at his lips.

"I feel like a time bomb," she corrected. "I'm running out of things that fit."

Steve beamed down into her face, an edge of excitement and adoration in his smile. "Then it's just as well we're telling everybody tonight." He tilted his head, looking her head to toe. "If it's any consolation, you're hiding it well. It's hardly noticeable at all when you've got clothes on."

Peggy swatted at him in mock outrage and he ducked away with a chuckle before offering his arm. "Shall we?"

She laced her fingers through his instead, and they went down together.

Neither one heard the telephone ring in the dark room behind them.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Fondue was, evidently, a Stark thing. Peggy caught Steve's eye as she deliberately put a bite in her mouth, and couldn't keep a teasing smile from spreading across her face as she saw his ears turn red.

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you?" he demanded, and she shook her head, spearing another cube of bread and dipping it into the melted cheese.

"Of course not. Here, open up."

Steve balked and glanced around. Not everybody at the party tonight knew about their marriage, but it was early yet and nobody else was near the refreshment tables. Stepping towards her, he opened his mouth obediently, snapping his teeth shut around the bite with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"That, Captain, is fondue," Peggy told him, trying to sound like a serious instructor. He hummed agreement, mouth full, and sneaked his arms around her waist, pulling her close.

"I think I know the difference now, Agent," he said when he could speak again. She dimpled, eyes dancing, and he bent his head towards hers.

"Cap, your geriatric pals are here,'" Tony announced, suddenly appearing and interrupting their moment. He saw the fondue pot and made an immediate detour. "Oooh, JARVIS, is this made with that really good cheese?"

Peggy tugged Steve into a swift kiss while Tony's back was turned, sharing the taste of melted cheese, before reluctantly letting him straighten. The captain had invited Sam and his group of veteran friends to the party. It was the first time he had ever actually invited guests to one of Stark's functions, and he was a little self-conscious.

"I guess I'd better go meet them."

It would be strange, this party tonight. They both felt it keenly. One last fling with the team as a whole, before they announced their pregnancy and imminent retirement. Sad, in a way - but then changes always were.

"Once more unto the breach," Peggy quoted under her breath, and caught the bright flash of her husband's smile as he stepped toward the men just entering the room.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

As far as Stark's parties went, this one was a success. True, Tony was a little bit mopy, frustrated that he didn't have more time to play with the scepter, and annoyed that Pepper had been called away at the last minute, but as the evening went on he began to loosen up a little. Thor, on the other hand, was in an expansively good mood. Other than the Avengers, he didn't know a soul there, but was more than willing to talk and laugh with anybody.

"Does - does he know them?" Bruce asked Natasha later, gesturing somewhat awkwardly at the Norse legend who was currently sitting on a couch surrounded by Steve's WWII buddies. The alien prince seemed to be telling some war story, and all the elderly gentlemen gathered around him appeared deeply invested in the tale.

Natasha twirled her drink between her fingers. "I don't think that matters much; not to Thor anyway," she decided, and sauntered off, an extra sway in her step. Bruce watched her go, wavered, and then looked around at all the people and shrank back into a corner out of the way.

He'd never cared much for large parties.

Sam showed up shortly afterward and rather unwisely challenged Steve to a game of pool. "Feeling lucky tonight!" he announced, rubbing his hands briskly together. He spent the next hour swearing and groaning at the pool table as the captain made shot after impossible shot. "How do you _do_ that, man?" he demanded. Steve grinned deprecatingly and shrugged, but Peggy was the one who answered.

"It'll come to you," she told him, red lips curling into a triumphant little smile as she leaned both hands on the table rail and watched her husband line up a clever shot that sent a ridiculous number of balls into their holes.

Sam slapped his forehead. Of _course_ the man who spent his time ricocheting his shield off of hard objects would be a natural at calculating trajectories and angles.

"No, I've just always liked it," Steve admitted. "It's one thing a little guy can do well, as long as the smoke's not too thick." He couldn't count the number of times Bucky had needed to half-carry him out after a coughing fit left him blue in the face, back when he was prone to such things.

As he waited for Sam to take his turn, Steve fiddled with his cue and looked around, taking his time and trying to soak in the moment. Those days with Bucky had been a lifetime ago, and yet here he was against all odds, in the company of good friends and the love of his life.

With their retirement, there would be more time to search. Perhaps someday there would be another evening like this - and maybe Bucky could be there then.

Smiling, Steve took the next shot and won the game.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Almost everyone had departed, and the last of Steve's veteran friends had been loaded, staggering, onto the bus. Only the Avengers and their close friends were left, and Sam groaned as he looked at his watch.

"Man, I got to go," he apologized. "Heading back to DC in the morning, and some of us need our sleep."

Steve shook his hand goodbye, and Peggy volunteered to show him out. It was late enough that some of JARVIS's security protocols may have kicked in, and she didn't want any alarms going off as he tried to exit the building.

"You thought of any names?" Sam asked, as the two of them walked through the darkened lobby to the front doors of Stark's tower. "Sam's a pretty nice name. Ensures he'll be good-looking."

"I'll keep that in mind," Peggy promised, swinging the large doors open. "JARVIS?" The AI didn't answer, but the alarms didn't go off either, so she guessed that was good enough.

"See you later, Sam," she told their friend as he stepped out to flag a taxi. "Thank you for coming."

He waved and was gone.

Peggy turned back to the elevator, pressing the button to the fiftieth floor, where she could switch to the private elevators and return to the party. With a secret flush of happiness, she let her fingers drift across the growing curve of her body. They were going to tell the others their good news tonight. Steve swore up and down that Tony was going to spit out his drink when he heard. Peggy would have liked to tell Pepper at the same time, but she had been suddenly called away by business, and they had determined not to wait. They would tell her when she came back.

The elevator was three floors away from the party when it shuddered suddenly, lights flickering. Peggy frowned, alarmed, and then the hum of the emergency backup system took over, and the elevator continued its ascent, significantly slower than before.

"JARVIS?" she asked again, but there was no answer. A few moments later, the doors slid open, and her stomach clenched at the unmistakable sounds of battle.

Peggy Carter Rogers was a product of her time. She had gone undercover in the French resistance, she had thrown herself headlong into German bases, and she had taken on Russian spies without hesitation. Now, with barely a heartbeat of consideration, she snatched her gun from the hidden holster high on her leg and charged toward the din.

Ahead of her, Clint suddenly slid through a doorway, making a beeline for Steve's shield where it hung against the wall.

"Barton," Peggy snapped, "What's wrong?"

Clint saw her then, and set his jaw. "'Bots went crazy," he explained, spitting out words faster than she'd known he could. "Stay out - we got this covered."

"Are you serious?" she demanded incredulously. Clint had never once treated her any differently because she was a woman, and this sudden change stung.

"Look," Clint panted, yanking the shield off the wall and turning back the way he'd come. "We both know it's not just your safety at stake anymore."

Peggy faltered, staring after him as he disappeared. How did he - did he know? And yet, though she hated to admit it, he did have a point. With a frustrated cry, she ran up the stairs, planting two bullets in the face of a robot that met her halfway down and leaving it in a sparking heap on the floor. Perhaps she could do some shooting from above.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The fight was practically over when she got to the balcony.

"...Avengers' extinction," a Legionnaire grated, and then Thor's hammer smashed it into the wall. The room was in shambles, broken glass and furniture scattered across the floor, and her husband wore the tense, focused stance that emerged during battle. She moved and he saw her, eyes scanning her questioningly until she gave him a reassuring nod.

"Did they get Sam?" he called up to her, face drawn tight.

Peggy shook her head, leaning down over the railing. "Not while he was here, anyway. I saw him out."

"The scepter," Thor suddenly growled, and a crash of thunder shook the tower. Blinding light blazed around him as his armor assembled, and then he burst through the broken window in pursuit of something only he could sense.

Steve was still very much on alert, voice hard. "Stark, that thing said it killed somebody. Were any of the caterers or custodians left in the building?"

Tony wasn't listening, tapping on his screen, worry written plainly across his face. "JARVIS," he begged. "Buddy?"

Then he ran for his lab.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

It was nearly morning by the time Steve and Peggy got back to their floor.

The entire tower was operating on emergency backup systems, and Pepper had called Rhodey's phone four times, demanding to know what was wrong with JARVIS. Whatever had attacked the tower's AI had also spread through the mainframe and crashed everything, including connections to the off-site servers. The computer system ran almost as much of the company as Pepper did, and suddenly her assets were freezing, files corrupted and lost - even her STARKPhone and GPS had stopped working. She'd had to borrow a custodian's generic-brand cell to make the calls, and dialed Rhodey's number off the top of her head because he had never switched to a STARKPhone despite Tony's endless begging.

"The company is going to take a massive hit from this," she'd fretted, loudly enough that everyone in the room could easily hear her over the line even though Rhodey didn't have it on speaker. "Tell him to switch control of the overseas accounts to the Swiss servers - I still have access to them."

"Give me that," Tony interrupted, snatching the phone from his friend. "Pepper? Pep, I need you. Open that connection to the server, okay?"

He poured out instructions almost without taking breath, impatient when Pepper was slow, both of them endlessly talking over each other until nobody else could understand. And all the time he was working like a madman, desperately rerouting the computers, rebooting and reinstalling, pushing all the servers back twenty-four hours and starting them with a backup system. So far he had reclaimed operations of two of his five satellites, but JARVIS himself seemed to be shattered beyond repair.

For his part, Steve was quietly, smolderingly angry. He did what he could to help, dragging the shattered drones to a secure room and helping Bruce and Clint clear the worst of the wreckage out of Tony's workspace, but it was clear from his clenched jaw what he thought of the whole thing. He was also the one who discovered that the rest of the Legionnaires in the repair bay had broken through the launch hatch and taken off in the night, leaving no hint as to their destination.

At length, the captain threw in the towel for the night. He was fair with computers, but the level of things Tony was trying was beyond anything he could do, and it didn't seem like the infected Iron Legion drones were coming back anytime soon. Besides, Peggy needed to rest, and he doubted he could get her to leave while he was still working.

"Go to bed," Natasha told them both, as if reading his mind. She had changed into a hoodie at some point, and her blurred mascara made her look like a raccoon. "Rhodes and Bruce and I will sit up. We'll let you know if something happens."

He gave her a brief, grateful nod that said far more than words, and then turned to his wife. They left together, taking the stairs - Peggy didn't want to trust the elevator again tonight.

The walk to their room was quiet. Peggy could tell that Steve was irate. Her own heart was heavy too. He had come so close to finishing his mission, only to have it snatched from under his nose. Now they would have to search down the scepter all over again, and the idea of fighting robots was strangely worrisome.

"You doing okay?" he asked quietly, hoisting his shield as they pushed through the door into their suite. Peggy nodded, gun in hand, automatically on the alert. Most of the legionnaires had left the building, but they weren't about to take any chances. Together they checked each room, only relaxing when it became apparent that nothing else was there.

"I'm tired," Peggy finally answered, tugging up the hem of her dress to put her gun away and undo her holster. "And I could wring Stark's neck, but other than that, I'm fine."

Steve checked the door, ensuring it was locked. After a moment of consideration, he very carefully moved the couch in front of the door as well. A simple lock wouldn't do much to stop a robot, should they come back tonight after all. The couch wouldn't either, but it might give them an extra moment or two in case of an attack.

"I was worried you'd come back in the middle of the fight," he confessed, giving the furniture a last appraising look.

Peggy unclasped her earrings; she was shivering a little. The automatic heating in the building had shut off when JARVIS went down, and apparently restoring it wasn't high on Tony's list of priorities. Steve had put his coat around her earlier, once the temperatures started dropping, but Maria's dress was thinner, so Peggy had promptly passed the jacket on to her.

"I almost did," she told him. "Which reminds me - did you tell Clint about the baby?"

Shaking his head, Steve noticed the little red blinking light on the answering machine, indicating a new message had been left sometime earlier. "No, why?" He pressed the replay button, waiting for Peggy to answer.

"I think he knows," Peggy explained, and then the message began to play and they both stopped to listen.

It was a woman's voice, brightly professional. " _Hi, this is Doctor Winter's office. We have some concerns about your recent sonogram, and need to meet with you as soon as possible. If you could come by tomorrow afternoon, we've set aside some time to meet with you. Thanks."_

The heavy click marking the end of the recording was the only sound in the room. Peggy's face was white when Steve looked up at her, and he knew his wasn't much better.

"It's probably nothing important," he finally managed, and his voice sounded strange in his own ears. They both knew perfectly well that doctors didn't open their offices to patients on weekends for nothing. Peggy nodded slowly.

"Probably."

Even so, she went for the photo album, bringing it to bed with her. Steve cuddled her close, looking over her shoulder and breathing into her neck in an attempt to warm her up as she flipped to the last picture in the book, carefully pasted in only the day before.

"Do you think it's the serum?" she abruptly asked, tracing the blurry, grey image of their baby. Her voice was small and careful in a way he didn't like to hear. Steve shook his head. This wasn't an area he knew anything about.

"Might be." He disentangled one hand to point. "Still, two arms, two legs, a head…" His voice trailed off and he pressed a reassuring kiss into Peggy's hair. "It's all there. Can't be anything too bad. Bet he looks like you."

He felt her relax into him, a little, and eventually her breathing deepened as she fell asleep. She wore out so quickly these days. Steve stayed awake though, staring ahead through the darkness, every one of his senses entirely focused on protecting his little family. If those drones came back tonight, he could handle them - it was the phone message that left him sleepless and worrying.

"Please," he breathed inaudibly, and curled his fingers into the fabric of Peggy's nightgown as he raised his heartfelt plea. "Don't let it be anything serious."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Everybody woke up late the next day, the normal schedule at the tower disrupted. Helen Cho left first thing, flying back to her lab in Korea. Steve drove her to the airport, since Tony and Bruce were busy trying to track Ultron, and Clint wanted the quinjet close by in case of emergency. The captain got the distinct feeling the Asian woman was trying to distance herself from any potential repercussions of the rogue robots. She had been badly shaken the night before.

Tony had been able to reboot most of his servers, and the environmental controls of the tower were finally online again, but there was no trace of the scepter or the robots. None of the news channels had reported anything about the Iron Legion, and there was a distinct feel of waiting in the air.

"I don't suppose their batteries ran out," Steve remarked dryly upon his return, tossing the car keys on the counter. Tony jerked upright behind the computer monitor he was bent over. His hair stuck up in tufts from where he'd run his hands through it, and he was still wearing his clothes from last night.

"Batteries," he grumbled in disdain, yanking at a tangled cable. "That's so twentieth century. They can't do anything too bad - their protocol won't allow it. Go read Asimov. They'll probably end up in a stalemate somewhere."

Steve set his teeth against the mixture of worry and fear that welled up in his throat. "Read it when it was new," he bit back. "And their behavior last night wasn't any too innocent. I get the feeling they're not listening to your mission protocol anymore. Whatever was in that scepter and smashed JARVIS took control of them, and I don't think it reads pulp fiction."

The mention of the computer system made Tony stiffen, and Steve remembered what he'd been going to ask in the first place. "By the way, how is JARVIS?"

Tony shrugged, trying to pull off nonchalance and painfully overdoing it instead. "He's a dead loss. No way to put the pieces together anytime soon. It'd take years."

Anger and frustration notwithstanding, Steve found it in him to sympathize with the man. "I'm sorry," he said frankly, and he was. They all knew how proud Stark had been of his brainchild, and no matter how good a face he put on it, Tony was hurting badly.

"Steve." Peggy was at the door, holding his coat. With a glance at the clock, he joined her. There had been so much to do, what with cleanup and all, that the day had slipped away.

"Going somewhere?" asked Bruce, straightening stiffly from an alarmingly sparking piece of machinery. The Iron Legion had left the tower _en masse_ , leaving chaos in their wake.

"Got an appointment," Steve answered shortly. "Let me know if you hear anything, Stark."

Tony flapped a hand in response, not looking up. With a long breath, the captain turned toward the elevator, hand spread against Peggy's back as she reached to press the button.

Everything was going to be fine. They'd make their doctor appointment, find the scepter, and figure out how to unplug Tony's killer robots. And then they would retire, have their kid, hunt down Bucky, and find a nice place with a good school and a scout troop.

Piece of cake. Complicated cake, but cake nonetheless, and Steve Rogers was determined to achieve it.

With a chime, the elevator doors rolled open. Pushing away the apprehension roiling under the surface, they stepped through together.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Fondue is totally a Stark thing. Remember Tony taking down a Legionnaire with something sharp during the party fight? Pause the video - it's a fondue fork. :)**

 **Okay, literature references, for those who care: Peggy's quote to Steve is from Henry V, Act III, Scene I. Steve and Tony's references to Asimov come from science fiction writer Isaac Asimov and his Three Laws of Robotics, which he wrote about in the short story "Runaround" in 1942. If popular fandom is correct and Bucky is as big a sci-fi nerd as we think, chances are fair he could have talked Steve into reading it.**

 **Thanks for the reviews! I love every single one of 'em!**

* * *

 **Laughy Taffy: Thank you! :D Yes, chaos - but fabulous chaos. Can't you just imagine it? (By the way, I totally laughed out loud at the mental image of root beer flooding through my screen!)**

 **Guest: Thank you so much for the encouragement! I'm glad you're liking it.**

 **ChildofGod: Awww. :) You're so kind. I was grinning all the way through your review, so I guess we're even. And you pretty much hit the nail on the head with your description of how it is to write. Gah. I'm glad you're so good-naturedly patient. :)**


	18. Chapter 18

**Warning: This chapter has some difficult stuff. Nothing graphic. If you're concerned, message me or scroll to the very bottom of the page beneath the guest review responses, where I have more detailed spoilers/warnings.**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Chapter Eighteen**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Was it something I did?"

Peggy's voice was carefully measured, but her lungs felt tight and her throat was closed. Steve stood out of sight behind her, his hands steady and grounding on her shoulders. She leaned into him, distantly grateful for his strength.

"No, no," Doctor Winters hurried to assure her, gesturing to the pamphlet he had handed her at the start of the appointment. He looked considerably less like Santa Claus today, cheeks sagging, eyes compassionate. "Nobody's sure exactly what triggers it. There is a genetic factor, but sometimes it just shows up out of the blue. There's nothing you could have done to cause or prevent this."

The pictures from the new sonogram they had just undergone were laid out in front of them - indiscriminate masses of pixelated gray, crossed over and labelled with red and blue marker. Pictures of their baby, their precious little son, with his arms and legs and head and...

The room swam, and Peggy realized she had forgotten to breathe. Doctor Winters was going on about something, his voice droning in her ears. _Left ventricular hypoplasia, aortic stenosis, univentricular circulation_.. _._

Choking in a sudden breath, she interrupted him. "What can we do about it?"

Doctor Winters faltered to a stop. "I beg your pardon?"

Peggy tilted her chin up. "What do we do about it? This is the twenty-first century - you can fix anything. What do we do?"

The doctor's face was horribly kind. "I'm so sorry," he said quietly. "There's nothing we can do."

"I won't accept that answer." Peggy's hands were shaking, absolutely furious with the doctor. She had shot men for less. "There's got to be something - some way to fix it."

"Peggy."

It was the first thing Steve had said, and he squeezed her shoulders, voice hoarse. "Let him talk, okay?"

Reluctantly, Peggy sat back, the air shuddering in her lungs, and the doctor continued, explaining in detail what was wrong with their baby boy.

It wasn't some side-effect of Steve's serum, even though their amniocentesis test from the last appointment had come back showing some minor chromosomal abnormalities that looked vaguely close to things on Steve's own paperwork. The tiny limbs and head were perfect. There didn't even seem to be any unexplained cellular formations. To all intents and purposes, their son was alive and well, and would likely remain so until he was born.

After that, the clock would start ticking.

Congenital heart defects. The pamphlet Peggy held crushed between her hands cheerfully proclaimed that thousands of children were born with them every year. Some defects were practically unnoticeable, and the bearers could live long and healthy lives. Some required years and years of dangerous surgeries, and some - just a few - could not be fixed at all.

"The valves are stuck closed, so the left half of his heart isn't developing," Doctor Winters explained patiently, "and he's small for his gestational age. Even if he were bigger, the chromosomal abnormalities alone would keep him from being a candidate for the neonatal surgeries - he wouldn't survive them. After he's born, you'll have a few hours with him, maybe even days. That's all I can promise."

A few days.

Once, not so very long ago, Peggy had been impaled straight through her body. She still remembered the shocking impact, the way the world had suddenly gone very distant, and finally the splitting agony.

This was worse.

As if from far away, she heard the doctor offering them the use of the room for as long as they needed, and Steve thanking him, his hands never moving from their place on her shoulders. She supposed she was grateful for that. His touch was the only thing holding her together, keeping her from flying into a thousand brittle pieces.

Oh, Steve - the man who had spent hours researching the perfect home, the perfect scout troop - the man who had wept for joy when he'd first seen the image of his child. How was she ever supposed to look him in the face again?

Eventually she blinked, and discovered he was kneeling in front of her, hands steady on her arms, peering into her eyes. "Breathe, Peg," he was saying. "I need you to breathe for me, okay?"

Peggy sucked in air, and it hurt. There was no blame or anger in the way he looked at her, only great concern and care, and a terrible, breathtaking pain that she felt mirrored in her own soul.

"Right," she heard herself say, and stood. Her knees were stiff, and shadows were stretching across the room; she wondered how long they had been in there. "I - mm." Words weren't coming easily. She needed to leave, to go home - somewhere where she could curl up and die like a wounded animal, out of this horrid office with the inane pictures on the walls.

Steve seemed to understand, although she could not speak. His hand was solid under her elbow, and he picked up her handbag, helping her into her coat with a kind of restrained gentleness in his touch.

They made it into the elevator before she broke.

"Peggy…" Steve touched her face and she backed away, surprised to see his fingers were wet with tears she didn't realize were trailing down her cheeks. He reached out again, but she flinched back, suddenly unable to bear the thought of being touched. Something was knotted tight in her chest, and her throat felt swollen shut.

"Peg, don't shut me out."

He was begging. Steve Rogers - Captain America - was _begging_ , and his voice was rough-edged and raw.

Peggy put her hands over her face and stumbled toward him until he caught her, holding her tightly. Somehow he got the elevator to stop before it reached the busy lobby, pulling her out into a nondescript hallway and behind a vending machine. It didn't offer much privacy, but it was better than nothing.

Peggy cried then, sobbing bitterly into his collar, and her husband pulled her close, aching as he felt the slight swell of her belly press against his body. Their baby was curled between the two people in all the world who would give anything to save him - and they were both completely powerless to do so.

There was nothing to say. Meaningless platitudes held no comfort here, and Steve wasn't sure he could frame one if he tried. He couldn't even cry, loss and guilt weighing him down more heavily than anything had in years. Wordlessly he rocked his grieving wife back and forth, cheek against her hair, eyes agonizingly dry even as her tears soaked his shirt.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

It was dark by the time they got back to the tower.

Peggy had cried herself out. Now, listless and red-eyed, she let her husband direct her into their apartment. The lights didn't come on automatically anymore, now that JARVIS was gone, so their little place was shrouded in gloom.

Characteristically, Steve buried his own wrenching sorrow by caring for his wife. Very tenderly, he took off her coat and hung it up, leading her into the kitchen and settling her in a chair before he groped for the lightswitch.

They both winced when the lights snapped on, the sudden glare starkly confrontational. Squinting, Steve poured a can of soup into a pan, setting it on the stove. Peggy hadn't eaten for hours - she would probably need food, whether she liked it or not.

It took a miserably long time for the soup to heat - Steve only realized after the third time he checked that he had forgotten to turn on the burner. When it was finally warm, he cut her a slice of bread and spread it with her favorite marmalade. Peggy stared dully as he set the food in front of her.

"I - I don't think I'm hungry," she managed at last, mouth quivering as she looked up at him. Seeing his brisk, decisive wife like this - lost, strangely vulnerable - it terrified him and nearly broke his heart.

"I know," he soothed her gently, scooting his chair over beside hers before filling the spoon and lifting it to her lips. "Just try a little, okay?"

She took a shuddering breath and did her best, taking the spoon from him with cold fingers and choking down as much of the meager meal as she could. Steve stayed with her, rubbing long, soothing strokes up and down her spine, hoping vainly to loosen the rigid muscles.

Had it been like this for her before, after he had gone into the ice? He couldn't help but wonder, though they'd never discussed those first dark days much. But back then they had both known the ever-present danger of war, acknowledged the possibility of death. This now - this had come out of the blue.

The meal didn't last long. With a sharp, sudden intake of breath, Peggy dropped the spoon and closed her eyes tightly, hand pressed against her side. For just a moment, Steve thought she was in pain - and then he realized that she was, only it wasn't a physical kind of pain that he could help.

Very gently, he covered her hand with his, spreading his fingers between hers so he could touch her stomach. He still couldn't feel anything, but Peggy evidently could.

Their baby was moving.

Suddenly Steve felt so tired that he scarcely knew how he was to go on. There were still months left of this, months left for Peggy to carry their child, feel him growing, feel him moving - and then they would finally get to hold their little boy only to helplessly watch him die in their arms.

It felt like nothing short of a nightmare - and if this was nightmarish for him, it had to be infinitely worse for his wife.

Peggy's hand was freezing beneath his and she panted, shallowly, as someone does who is bearing great pain. He watched as she slowly rallied, forcing her face into a bleak semblance of normality.

"I'm going to bed," she told him hoarsely after a minute, and went.

Mechanically, Steve set about cleaning up the kitchen. The frugal part of his soul rebelled at the thought of throwing away Peggy's half-eaten bowl of soup, but the one spoonful he managed to swallow stuck in his throat and turned his stomach until he thought he was going to be sick. At last he gave up, dumping it down the drain with a silent apology.

The handle of the scrub brush snapped off in his hand when he tried to wash the dishes.

The knot in his chest drew impossibly tighter, and Steve swore softly under his breath, groping for the other brush Peggy kept under the counter. It broke too, in his too-tight grip, and then the bowl in his other hand shattered, cracking down the side. He dropped it, pieces of glass falling into the sink, ruined like everything else he touched.

"Oh God."

His lungs felt stiff and each breath was a struggle, the enormity of their impending loss crashing down on him all over again. Helplessly he bowed over the counter, tile cool against his elbows, fingers buried in his hair. "Oh God, _please_ …"

He had no idea how long he stood there, but eventually something clattered in their room, and Peggy's muffled sob of frustration brought him back to himself. She needed him - he had to be strong for her.

Dragging his hands down his face in an attempt at composure, Steve swallowed hard and pulled himself upright.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

She couldn't get her blouse off. Peggy yanked again at her buttons, struggling to coax them through the buttonholes with her trembling, numb fingers. She was suddenly incredibly angry - angry at her buttons, at her hands, at herself.

She had always been so capable - good at shooting, at codebreaking, at solving puzzles. Clever, resourceful Peggy Carter, making a way for herself in a world that didn't always welcome her, and she had never failed; not in the big things anyway.

Not until now.

Something touched her shoulder and she swung around, war-honed reflexes taking over, fist driving toward the face of the person behind her before she could stop herself. Dodging, Steve caught her hand in his larger palm, deflecting the blow. For the first time, he looked every one of his ninety-odd years.

They looked at each other for a minute, their breathing the only sound in the silence of the room. Then Peggy shuddered and let her hand fall. To her shame, she felt tears gathering again, and closed her eyes so he would not see.

"Here," Steve offered quietly. Her hands hung limply at her sides as he helped her get ready for bed, undressing her like a small child. Helping her into her warmest pajamas, he tucked her into bed and then clicked off the light, moving quietly around the darkened room as he put her clothes away.

Closing the last bureau drawer, he hesitated, uncertain how to proceed. Peggy had curled into a small lump under the covers in the center of the mattress, her back turned toward his side of the bed. As he watched, he thought he saw her shake - whether from cold or grief, he couldn't tell, but it decided his course of action.

Quietly, he kicked off his shoes and crawled in bed behind her. Reaching out, he touched her shoulder very lightly. It was tight beneath his fingertips.

"I love you, Peggy," he whispered through the darkness.

She didn't move for a moment, and he was about to withdraw his hand and give her some privacy, when she suddenly sobbed once and rolled over, burrowing into his arms. She cried again then, angrily, brokenly, coiled into a miserable little ball, and he locked his large frame around hers and held her close, a bulwark of powerless strength between her and the rest of the world.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) is a congenital heart defect that makes up less than five percent of all congenital heart defects, yet claims the highest rate of cardiac-related deaths among newborns. Unless the child is a candidate for a series of extensive and immediate surgeries at birth and throughout the first three years, fatality is 100%. Sadly, children with chromosomal abnormalities are not candidates for surgical intervention, for various reasons.**

 **I have done** _ **way**_ **too much research. Feel free to PM me with questions.**

 ***throws tissues at you, runs and hides from the pitchfork-brandishing readers***

* * *

 **Laughy Taff: :D So, Dr. Winter was named that because of a professor I know named Dr. Frost. Sadly no foreshadowing, I'm afraid. Also -** _ **please**_ **don't sic your backup JARVIS on me after this chapter… *ducks, runs away***

 **anonymuse: Thanks for stopping by - and the cookies - and the actual shout of laughter I gave when I read your review. :D Seriously, I was giggling for ages.**

 **ChildOfGod: I know, right? Clint used to be one of my least favorite Avengers, just because his character didn't really grab me for whatever reason - and then AOU came out and he jumped nearly to the top of my list in literally three seconds. Give me a happily married couple with a family any day. :)**

 **Guest: Literary references are my favorite thing - I'm glad you liked them too. Thanks for the encouragement!**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 ******* _ **Warning**_ **(redirected from the top): this chapter deals with discussion of fatal structural birth defects, and the parents' emotional reaction to them. It is a difficult chapter, and deals with themes of loss, grief, and anger.*****


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _Thump._

 _Thump._

He hadn't done this in months.

It used to be his standard way of coping, when the pressures of this new life got to be too much, and he couldn't sleep at night. Nowadays, on those nights, he would curl around his wife, narrowing his world to the sound of her breath and the feel of her hair, but not tonight. He didn't feel worthy to turn to her for his own comfort, didn't want to wake her.

He had broken her heart.

 _Thump. Thump - thump._

So he found himself down in the gym, after Peggy had cried herself into an exhausted sleep in his arms, letting out his own grief and devastation on a couple of punching bags. Sand scattered the floor around him, gritting under his bare feet as he moved - the previous bag had burst rather dramatically.

" _You're all killers,"_ the voice of Stark's rogue robot grated accusingly through his mind, and Steve hit the bag harder, face drawn painfully tight.

He had killed before, in service of his country and his fellow men. People were dead because of him, and he accepted that responsibility, shouldering it soberly. War was war. Soldiers fought, and soldiers died, and he would carry the burden of each life lost for as long as he lived.

This was worse, though. Now he had killed his own child, doomed him to death merely by fathering him in the first place.

What kind of monster murdered his own son?

" _I'll make you happy, Peggy, so help me God."_ His own voice came back to haunt him, the promises he had made his wife when she had agreed to be his. Steve winced, driving unbound fists harder into the bag until his knuckles split and bled. It wasn't enough.

He had failed her, failed their baby, failed everybody. Steve would gladly have laid down his life for either one of them, but that wasn't being asked of him. All his strength, all his might, all the enhanced muscles in his body meant absolutely nothing, because he couldn't use them to protect his family when they needed it the most.

 _Thump. THUMP._

"Steve?"

Peggy's voice cut through the cloud of crushing guilt, and he pressed his forehead against the punching bag in front of him, steadying it with his hands, breathing hard. He hadn't wanted her to see him like this. He needed to be strong for her; be the kind of man she deserved - and yet, like always, she had found him when he was at his lowest.

"Steve?" Peggy stepped closer, dragging her dressing gown tightly around her against the chill in the air. She was _so_ cold - had woken shivering in their bed to find Steve gone. JARVIS was dead; she couldn't ask him to find her husband, but it didn't matter.

She had known where he would be.

The captain was shaking from head to toe, shoulders heaving, shirt stuck to his back, damp with sweat. Blood stained his hands, and for a moment he wouldn't quite look at her, back half turned towards where she stood. Then he sucked in a painful-sounding breath and tried to meet her eyes, his own swimming with such incredible guilt and devastation and self-blame that she felt her heart twist in her chest.

"I - it's me, Peggy." He swallowed hard. "It's my fault."

"Oh, Steve…"

She had seen him grieve deeply before, after Bucky's death, but there had been a delay of several days between his loss and the day she found him in the bombed-out pub. Jones and Dugan had told her though, of the man who ran all night back down the railroad tracks, the man who scaled the cliffs until his hands bled and his voice was hoarse from calling his brother's name - the man who had knelt with bared head and dull eyes in the early light of morning, struggling with his own failure.

This was the man who stood before her now, more completely undone than she had ever seen him.

"My bad heart, from - before." Steve's mouth twisted, and his eyes fell again. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He wasn't sure how she could bear to be in the same room as him. "Genetic factors," the doctor had said, and the crumpled pamphlet on the floor between them said the rest. No, nobody knew exactly what triggered congenital heart defects, but children of parents who had heart defects themselves were more likely to be born with one. Steve's heart beat heavily in his chest, solid and steady and even - so different from the way it had been before Doctor Erskine, before Project Rebirth.

'Heart trouble,' they'd called it then, though it hadn't been anywhere near as severe as what their son was facing now.

"I know about your heart," Peggy told him softly, stepping closer. "I signed off on your medical records, remember?"

His hands were trembling, blood smeared across his skin, dripping from his split knuckles to the floor. It seemed very appropriate, somehow. This child they wanted and loved so desperately was dying, and it was his fault, the fault of his heart. Ultron was right - he was a killer.

He didn't realize he'd said that out loud until Peggy hauled off and slapped him. It was barely more than a tap to him, but the shock whipped his head around more than the actual blow and he caught his breath.

"Don't you dare," she cried, eyes wet, a bright spot high on each cheek. "Steven Rogers, don't you dare. You think I don't feel awful too? I can't even give birth to a healthy child. Should I blame myself for that?"

Her voice echoed in the otherwise silent gym, and the fleeting thought crossed her mind that this was all so silly - melodramatic enough to satisfy even a Stark. Steve shuddered, and his eyes were heartbreakingly sad as he turned to finally, finally look directly at her.

"It's my genetics though, my bad heart," he told her heavily, trying earnestly to comfort her even through his own blinding heartsickness. "Not yours. You're perfect, Peggy. It's not your fault."

Peggy caught her breath, squeezing her eyes shut, rubbing her knuckles against her temples as her anger drained away, fast as it had come. Then she reached up, cupping his face in her hands, smoothing her fingers in mute apology over the skin where she had slapped him. He had been her rock earlier, now it was her turn.

"Listen, darling," she looked straight into his eyes, trying to drive her words deep. "You've always had the kindest, truest, largest heart of anyone I've ever known, and I couldn't ask for my son to have inherited a better one."

Steve's shoulders were still tight, but the wild anguish of earlier seemed to be settling, raw and weighty inside of him. Peggy put her arms around his neck and stepped into him, standing on her toes to lay her head on his shoulder. He choked suddenly, a strangled sound forcing through his teeth, and then he was holding her tightly, desperately, burying his face in her neck, his hands leaving rusty streaks on her robe.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered thickly. Peggy bit her lips to keep them steady.

"I know. So am I," she breathed, and ran her hands through his hair, absolution in her touch.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy bandaged her captain's hands meticulously, sitting on one of the extra punching bags, first aid kit set open at her side. He sat at her feet, head in her lap, and let her nurse his battered knuckles. They would probably be healed shortly, but he wasn't about to deny her the comfort that came with caring for another.

The kit snapped shut, and she laid his hand down, finished. For a long moment, they sat in silence, both exhausted and wrung dry from emotion. Peggy's fingers traced through his sweaty hair, already drying in spikes. The tower was filled with the peculiar echoing quality of quiet that meant they were the only ones awake.

"I need to do something," Peggy said suddenly. He caught the edge of forlorn desperation in her plea, so he pulled himself together and sat up.

"Want to take a walk then, Mrs. Rogers?"

The communal closet in the gym held a motley assortment of mission gear and random personal items. He helped her into a long trench coat of Natasha's to cover her dressing gown, and then spent ten minutes hunting for his own jacket before realizing he'd worn it to the doctor's office and then left it in the initial haze of grief and shock.

New York City.

The old song claimed it never slept, and although it was still dark outside, cars whizzed by as regularly as at any other time. The cold morning air tingled on their skin as the two of them wandered down the maze of sidewalks. Peggy slipped her hand through his arm after a few blocks, and Steve had to set his teeth against the unexpected emotion the simple gesture awoke. Even though all this was his fault, she still considered him worthy of her trust.

They ended up in a church. It wasn't one they'd ever been to, but that didn't matter. Peggy had begun shivering again, so Steve tried the doors and was vaguely surprised to find them open.

"Can we - sit?" he asked the custodians. They must have been used to people stopping by in the early hours of the morning, because they nodded, going about their business.

It was an older church, and there was something peaceful in the great stone arches curving overhead. Peggy leaned against him, and he put his arm around her shoulders, sitting quietly. Peggy's eyelids fluttered closed after a bit, mouth silently moving as she recited the prayers she had learned as a child. Steve prayed too, with all his heart and soul for comfort for his wife and himself and, God willing, a miracle for their unborn baby.

Defeat had never sat well with Steve Rogers, and he found himself casting around, trying to find a solution. After all, where there was life, there was hope, and their son was still alive. Helen Cho couldn't help - thus far she was only able to create skin. He'd considered offering another blood transfusion, but Peggy already had some serum in her veins, and while it could help with cellular regeneration, it alone could not create the needed muscle growth without the lost secret of the Vita-Rays.

No, this issue required a kind of medical expertise that none of the scientists on their team could give.

The world outside began to grow light, and Steve stirred, shifting his feet, feeling the pins-and-needles sensation as the blood ran back into them. Peggy sat up, and they looked at each other.

"The war will never be over, will it?"

Her voice was low. Steve shook his head heavily. There would always be another battle to fight, always another hill to climb. They had been na **ï** ve to ever dream otherwise.

Peggy took a halting breath. Her eyes were open wounds into a quivering soul, but her lips were pressed firmly together to keep them steady. "So what do we do now?"

She was so brave, so infinitely strong. Steve looked down at her hand and then took it very carefully in his. Gently, he touched the wedding band on her finger, and then bent his head to press a fervent kiss against it. His heart throbbed, even as he felt himself falling in love with her even more than before.

"We're going to talk to Pepper," he told her, when he looked up into her eyes. "And then we will love our son with all our hearts for as long as we have him."

The sun rose as he spoke, and the stained glass of the church burst into glorious colored light all around them, bringing a measure of quietude to their weary souls. In the window over the pulpit, a little lamb nestled safe in the Good Shepherd's arms, and Peggy blinked back sudden tears as she squeezed her husband's hand.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **I've been truly swept away by yours responses to the last chapter - everything from pitchforks to seasoned advice. Y'all are the best ever!**

 **Friendly reminder that it is not appropriate to strike other people unless it's in defense of self or others. We'll give Peggy a pass on this one for now, because this is fiction and she apologized, but it's truly not okay. Don't ever hit/let people hit you, folks - you're worth more than that.**

* * *

 **Laughy Taffy: Mmmm, who knew caramels and fishing hooks could work so well on me? Also, the video security blanket made me laugh. :)**

 **ChildOfGod: Ooh, I like the way you think. Hopefully you haven't suffocated or drowned yet! And here, have more tissues. And a hug.**

 **Guest: No kidding! Well, if there was a dance named after the town I lived in, I'd learn it too! I'm so glad you're enjoying this story. If you do end up writing your modern-day Steggy fic, be sure to let me know!**

 **Guest: (I have a hunch you're the same guest as above, but just in case, I'm answering it separately.) I have never been compared to "The Queen of Character Torture," and I'm extremely flattered. Thanks!**


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Twenty**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Maria Hill snagged Steve as soon as they reentered the tower.

"Rogers," she said, and then raised her eyebrows at Peggy, who with no lipstick and uncurled hair was looking more bedraggled than the other woman had ever seen her. Peggy set her chin and raised her head, responding to the unspoken challenge with one of her own.

"What's up?" asked Steve, nodding toward the tablet in the security chief's hand. Maria snapped back to the business at hand with a visible jolt.

"We've got word on the Iron Legion. Oh," she turned to Peggy, "Pepper flew back in a few minutes ago. She wanted to talk with you about the situation."

Peggy nodded. "I'd better go find her then," she agreed, and then turned, standing on her toes to softly kiss her husband's lips in a rare public display of affection. "Steve, come talk with the two of us when you can get away."

"I will," the captain promised, and watched her walk away before turning back to Hill. "Right, fill me in." He unwound the bandages from his hands as they walked, tossing them into the trash can by the door. His knuckles were mostly healed, anyway.

The gaping tear in his heart wasn't, though. Somehow he didn't think it ever would be.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Strucker was dead.

Strucker was dead, and suddenly the Iron Legion units were everywhere. Maria's tablet fairly overflowed with news articles, blog posts, shaky cell phone videos documenting the evidence. It was the first definitive news on the rogue Iron Legion bots since their disappearance - and one that definitely proved Tony's anti-bloodshed programming had been overruled.

The war criminal had been one definite connection they had to Ultron, through the scepter that had brought the defense system to life - and now that last thread of hope was gone forever.

One possibility remained, slim though it was. Evidently, Strucker had a friend in Africa, one Ulysses Klaue - and Ulysses Klaue had a hideout somewhere on the coast of South Africa. Klaue had a fascination with weaponry; perhaps he knew where the newly-lost scepter was.

What was particularly concerning to the captain was the fact that Klaue evidently had some kind of connection with Wakanda, the only country in the world with any known ties to vibranium. If Ultron was hunting down any last traces of the metal - well, the captain couldn't think of anything good that would come out of it.

Steve didn't know much about Africa - only what he had read in the Tarzan novels as a kid and what Howard Stark had told him. He didn't feel like they needed him hovering over their shoulders while they searched for Klaue's location, so it wasn't hard to slip away, leaving Bruce and Tony going over their meager records.

After all, he'd promised to meet his wife.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The door to Pepper's office was half-open - a sure sign that she wasn't having the easiest of days. Usually she kept everything around her as neat as a pin.

Steve rapped softly on the doorframe.

"Come in," Pepper called, and he pushed through the doorway. The CEO of Stark Industries looked tired and worn out, and more than a little exasperated at the work that filled her desk. It wasn't a secret that she didn't exactly approve of Tony's constant robot-making, and now this whole situation was rapidly becoming an international nightmare that looked likely to drop in her lap.

Peggy sat on the other end of the desk, scribbling something on a clipboard. Even though she had a tablet, she always claimed there was something about handwritten notes that organized her thoughts. Steve moved to her side, softly brushing her shoulder with his fingertips, and she put on a bright, brief smile as she looked up into his concerned eyes.

He knew her too well to be fooled. Peggy had dressed as for a battle, pinning back her uncurled hair and wearing her brightest shade of lipstick. This was not going to be an easy day for either of them.

"Steve!" Pepper sounded surprised, although welcoming, when she finally looked up. The smile she directed at him was hopeful. "Any news?"

Steve shook his head, wondering how on earth to turn the conversation around. "Possible lead in Africa, but nothing concrete."

"Actually," Peggy broke in, reaching for Steve's hand. Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat. He settled down beside her, curling his fingers securely around hers and unconsciously squaring his shoulders. "We needed to ask your advice about something."

Obviously curious about their semi-formal bearing, Pepper blinked. "About what?"

They told Pepper about the baby first. Pepper was shocked, overjoyed, dropping her tablet unheeded on the table.

"I don't know why you'd want my advice though," she admitted once her flow of delighted congratulations had ebbed a little. "I don't know anything about children."

"Perhaps not." Peggy tried to keep her voice light, but it was strained, painful. "But you know what it is to love someone with a - mm - a heart condition."

That was when they told Pepper the rest. Steve didn't do much of the talking - he just held Peggy's hand supportively and watched her beloved face and waited for the CEO's reaction.

He didn't have long to wait. As soon as she realized the full impact of the diagnosis, Pepper caught her breath sharply as if she'd been slapped across the face. Then she sprang to her feet and fairly flew around the desk, moving faster in her suit and heels than should have been possible, to wrap first Peggy and then the captain in long, tight embraces.

"I am so, so sorry," she whispered. She was surprisingly strong for such a slight woman.

The unexpected gesture of sympathy brought a lump into Steve's throat, and completely robbed Peggy of the ability to speak. He rummaged in his pocket for a handkerchief, offering it to his wife, and she dabbed at her eyes with it as their friend retreated back to the other side of the desk.

Pepper had definitely been the right person to ask. As a result of Tony's cardiac - adventures - she knew every heart specialist on the Eastern Seaboard.

"You'll want to get as many opinions as you can," she pointed out, after she returned to her chair and they more fully explained the situation. "There might be a newer procedure that your doctor wouldn't know about. I have connections with a few cutting-edge surgeons at the University of Boston. They deal with adult open-heart surgery, but they might know somebody to talk to."

Peggy caught her breath, and her grip on Steve's hand turned downright painful. They had spent the night battling despair, and Pepper's thread of hope actually hurt. "Do you suppose there might be a chance?"

The CEO dialed a number on her phone, holding it to her ear.

"I don't know," she cautioned. Her gaze was very direct, and very honest. "But it can't hurt to get a second opinion."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Faster than anybody had expected, a lead to the possible location of Klaue's hideout was found. One of Tony's connections from the "old days" had a shipping address, and had been persuaded to supply it. The Avengers readied for takeoff, but Peggy opted to stay in New York.

Ostensibly her purpose was to stay in touch with SHIELD. Only Steve and Pepper knew about the appointment she had scheduled with an acquaintance of one of Pepper's connections who happened to be in town, and who had managed to squeeze her in as a favor.

"Take care of yourself," Peggy ordered now, snapping the buckles into place at Steve's back before leaning her forehead between his shoulderblades. They were alone in one of the prep rooms. He finished putting on his gloves before turning and pulling her into an embrace. Her body was tense beneath his hands. To the untrained eye, Peggy was as put together as ever, but even the bright lipstick couldn't hide the strained set of her mouth from him. She wouldn't break down again, but Steve knew she was struggling.

He was too, for that matter. Grief was a heavy, constantly present burden on both of them. Steve had bottled up as much of his sorrow and guilt as he could, trying valiantly to stifle the pain in work, but his frustration with the whole situation kept bleeding through. He knew he was being a little too hard on his teammates, especially Stark, but he just couldn't seem to rein it in sufficiently.

"I will," he promised, lips against her temple, hand slipping down to trace the hidden curve of her stomach where it pressed against him. "I'll call first chance I get."

Somewhere, deep down in the darkest, most cynical part of her soul, Peggy had been terrified that this new trial would drive Steve away from her. This great sorrow of theirs had the potential to draw them closer together or to tear them apart, and she didn't know if she could cope with losing both her boys. Still, his tender treatment of her had never faltered, and thus far their pain had only served to make their marriage and commitment to each other stronger than ever.

Snuggling closer, she closed her eyes and tried to memorize the feel of him. Never, in all her life, had she found a place that felt safer than inside the circle of Steve Rogers' arms. Then, with a resigned sigh, she stood on her toes, kissing him rather thoroughly, smiling a little at the sweep of his eyelashes against her face as his breath caught in his throat.

"And the fossils are kissing again." Natasha sauntered in, mouth twisting into a sly grin as the two tried to pull apart with dignity. "Oh, don't stop. I think it's sweet."

"She thinks she's funny," Steve told Peggy with mock gravity, before turning to his fellow Avenger. "Is everybody ready to go?"

Natasha nodded, checking her ammunition one more time. "Everybody's set, Cap. Wheels up in five."

"Right." Steve pressed Peggy's hand and she nodded reassuringly, letting him go.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"God's righteous man," Stark's robot sneered, "pretending you can live without a war."

Steve tightened his grip on his shield, willing himself not to react even as his heart contracted. To live without a war - that was what he wanted. His cherished daydream of a home in Brooklyn, a healthy son with skinned knees and tousled hair, a wife whose mouth wasn't drawn from weeping - he wanted it more than he could say.

There had been a lot of surprises, here at Klaue's hideout in Africa. They hadn't expected to find the rogue robot actually in residence, let alone the two young people who Steve recognized from Maria Hill's briefing and the confrontation in Sokovia. He eyed them closely, but they seemed healthy enough. Not coerced, then. That would make things harder.

The robot, too, was different. He still called himself Ultron - the name Tony had given the defense program - but now he looked more like pictures Clint had showed them of the Destroyer from New Mexico. There was something alien about the way he moved - fluid and deadly, differently from the Iron Legion unit he had originally used.

Then Ultron lashed out, and Tony retaliated, and suddenly they had a fight on their hands. Steve tried to keep an eye on the twins as he fought. After all, they were young, dangerous, and volatile. He had hoped to sit them down and have a talk, but there was no way that was happening now.

Thor fell first.

Mid-report - something about the female twin - he suddenly went silent.

"Thor?" Steve bellowed into his earpiece, louder than he'd intended. He saw Natasha wince and reach for her ear, and resisted the urge to apologize. "Thor, do you read me?"

Thor didn't answer.

Shoving aside his assailant, Steve pushed down the hallway toward the place he had last seen the alien prince. Something struck him, threw him into a pile of scrap metal, but he rolled to his feet, pressing on. The world was dark, dim and gloomy. He slowed, suddenly wary, trying to remember why he had come.

There was no urgency, was there?

A saxophone blared, loud enough to startle him, and then the rest of the band joined in.

 _People crowded around him, crimson smiles grimacing across their faces, screaming with laughter. Something exploded and he jerked back, panic swelling in his throat before he realized it was a camera flash._

 _Confused, he turned around, trying to remember how he had come to be there, searching for something recognizable._

 _He knew those faces, some of them. Many were men who had died under his command, or soldiers he'd arrived too late to save. Unease stabbed through his soul, even as the celebration reached a fever pitch._

" _Are you ready for our dance?"_

Peggy _. He was so relieved to find her - no matter what else was wrong, she was right, familiar. The war was over. No more explosions, no more death. Just the two of them against the world. "We can go home," she whispered thrillingly._

 _Home. Yes, that was right. He'd finally got enough points, finally been sent home. Dugan and Stark and Barton could manage on their own - this was what he needed, what he had wanted for an age._

" _Imagine it," she begged him, eyes alight._

 _Then he was alone, in the middle of an empty world, and weight gathered in his chest, loneliness and culpability eating at his soul. Peggy was gone, vanished away like smoke on the wind. He had walked away from his responsibilities, closed his eyes to the war going on around him, desiring nothing but his own selfish ends - and now he had lost everything._

 _His child, his wife, his men - he had failed them all._

 _Of course there was no home. Not for him. Never for him._

 _The music was too loud. Peggy spun into his arms and his heart broke, even as he gathered her close. Their baby was gone, her abdomen flat against his hip._

" _Peggy?" he begged, and she smiled brilliantly, ringless hand on his chest, turning her head away, no longer his._

 _He had lost her._

 _Mocking laughter built in his head, screaming in his ears._

 _The tiny casket in his hands was the heaviest burden he had ever held; a terrible weight no parent should ever have to bear._

 _It dragged him to his knees, and he shattered all over the floor._

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

With a groan and a mighty effort, Steve pulled himself away, staring at the industrial fluorescent lighting over his head, horror and loss echoing through his soul. The floor was hard behind his back, yet he was still falling. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open.

At length, when he could move again, he crawled painfully to where Thor lay a few steps further on. Every nerve ending in his body felt raw, and his muscles shuddered. His head felt oddly fragile, as though a blown bird's egg had taken the place of his skull, and winking lights smeared behind his eyeballs.

"Thor," he gasped, checking the alien over for any visible damage. "Thor?"

The alien prince choked suddenly, body heaving as with some shock. Laughter and screams still rang in Steve's ears, and he gritted his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to ground himself. He had a job to do - a team to take care of.

Everything else would have to wait.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Everybody was severely shaken. Natasha wouldn't talk to anyone, nearly taking Steve's head off when he clumsily tried to check on her. Clint shook his head subtly, even as he shoved a blanket into the assassin's arms, pushing her toward a chair.

"She doesn't do gentle," he explained. "Not when she's like this."

Steve was really grateful for Clint's presence of mind. Clint was the one who got the jet off the ground, the one who tracked Iron Man's whereabouts, the one to help get a semi-conscious Bruce settled while Tony took off the suit.

"We need to get out of their airspace before somebody tries to arrest Banner," Tony snapped. "Let's go home."

Clint nodded, already at the controls. It all seemed very distant to the captain. He felt like he was watching the interior of the jet through a fog.

" _We can go home,"_ Peggy's voice echoed in his ears, and it hurt, a deathly pain deep in his being. He tried to swallow, tried to breathe, but ice sealed over his nose and lips, and he very nearly broke the armrest of his chair in a surge of sickening panic before his vision cleared again.

Apparently the Maximoff girl's poison had stirred up all kinds of echoes from his past.

Thor prowled restlessly, his hammer clenched in his fist. Clint had tried to talk to him, find out if he was okay, but the alien didn't seem to be capable of managing English. When he spoke, it was in some foreign tongue they all assumed was Asgardian. He looked to be deeply troubled, and nobody was entirely sure if he realized he was speaking a different language.

Maria Hill's voice came over the speakers. She sounded frustrated, as well she might. They had certainly left a magnificent PR mess for Pepper to clean up.

Steve reached for the microphone right before she terminated the call. "Hill," he started, flipping the feed to play directly into his earpiece, rather than the main speakers. "Is - Peggy there?"

He needed to talk to her, needed to hear her voice - needed it with a desperate craving in the hollow of his soul.

"I'm sorry, Captain. She's out, didn't say when she'd be back."

Of course. Steve stared at the clock, laboriously calculating the time difference between Africa and New York. She had an appointment. Because they hadn't lost the baby yet - that had been all part of the dream, right?

"Thanks," he managed at last, and cut the call.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Clint had a family.

Somehow, once Steve thought about it, he wasn't as surprised as he probably should have been. He'd known the archer had his own life apart from Avenging, but he'd suspected most of that was working with SHIELD.

Laura was sweet, very warm and kind with a practical side he thought Peggy might have liked. The way she handled having a deluge of weary strangers dropped in on her was nothing short of admirable. Under different circumstances the captain would have wanted to help out more, ask questions, find out more about this side of his teammate's life - but right now Steve felt like he could barely hold himself together.

Thor had left, taking off with very little explanation. Steve wondered if it was because the alien was too bent on his mission, or if he was still having a hard time remembering to be understood in English. Either way, he was gone - and suddenly Steve felt very alone. He paused in the doorway, looking in.

This was what he yearned for - a home, someplace safe where he could settle with his wife and his son, somewhere his friends could come over for dinner. The setting wasn't ideal - Steve wasn't much of a farm boy - but the sentiment was the same.

It all seemed so unattainable.

Cooper leaned against his father, and the little girl - Steve hadn't caught her name - chattered confidingly to Natasha until the strained, dead look in the woman's face was gone. The captain's head still felt odd, and suddenly the little girl had his wife's darker, thicker curls.

" _We can go home,"_ Peggy's voice echoed around him again, and that was when he knew, with a bitter finality, that he never would.

Home, family - those things were not for men like him.

Being inside the house suddenly seemed too invasive, too confining. Steve trudged back to the quinjet, parked in the field, and methodically changed his clothes, pulling out fresh things from one of the lockers and dropping the pieces of his uniform on the floor. He eyed the communications system, desperately wanting to power it up and call Peggy, though he knew he couldn't. Clint had put a lot of effort into keeping this place secret, and if he called from the quinjet, his call could be traced.

With a sigh, he stepped away from temptation, out into the open air, taking deep breaths until his head felt less breakable and his thoughts were more ordered.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Set the table, will you Captain?" Clint's wife immediately ordered him upon his return to the house, accompanying the words with a warm smile. She brandished a wooden spoon toward the table in question. "Cooper and Lila can show you where everything is."

The young man reminded Steve a lot of Clint, in the set of his head and the sharp way he had of looking at things. Just for a moment, as they put the silverware on the table and tried to fit four more chairs around it, he let his mind wander to the son he might have had.

Had. Currently. Their baby wasn't dead - not yet, anyway. Faint echoes rang mockingly in the back of his mind. Steve shook his head to clear it, and realized his fist was clenched around a handful of forks. Cooper watched him steadily from the other side of the table.

"You okay, mister?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah, just tired. Been a long day." He bit back the bitterness rising up in his throat - everyone else's nightmare had ended when they woke up, but his continued on.

His son was still dying, and it was still his fault.

Something clamped around his leg, just above the knee, and he jerked in surprise, looking down at Lila. She beamed up at him.

"Pick me up, Cap'n 'Merica!"

Well, far be it from him to deny a lady. Steve swooped her up in one arm, and immediately understood why the Black Widow had gone from stunned and strained to alive and joyful in a matter of moments. There was something in the trusting clasp of childish arms around his neck that banished the distant laughter even further, even as it intensified the ache in his chest.

"She's a bit clingy," Laura apologized, breaking up a head of lettuce at the sink. Steve shook his head, hitching the little girl higher on his hip so he could set the table with his free hand.

"I don't mind."

In truth, he would have held her as long as she let him. Lila snuggled her head into his shoulder, and giggled when he bounced her up and down. Connor grinned, suddenly, showing off the gaps in his teeth as he traced the edge of the shield that leaned against the wall.

"I'll teach you how to throw that sometime," Steve promised, and it was all so heartbreakingly normal. He only wished Peggy could be there too.

Because if they could never have this with their own son, then maybe his teammate wouldn't mind lending his children out, once in a while.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Be aware that Steve's a slightly unreliable narrator in this chapter. His brain's been messed with, so he's a little bit all over the place at this point. I apologize for all the retelling from AOU - I usually try to stay in the gaps and let the movie stand by itself, but there were pieces that I felt I had to include for continuity's sake.**

 **Thanks everybody for reading and saying hi! The next chapter is pretty much completely finished, so it'll be up sooner rather than later.**

* * *

 **ChildofGod: Ahem. Sorry? :) Your review made me ridiculously happy, tragic though it was, because it sounds like I succeeded in my aim in writing that chapter. Thank you!**

 **Laughy Taffy: Ha! Kiwi birds are so cute! And I would definitely try a butterscotch-chocolate caramel. Here's hoping Jarvis finds his way out of that file at some point. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **Charleston Hannah: Hi! Yeah, I can see how the Charleston would be very different from the typical ballroom dance. It's neat that you can do both - dancing is not my forte. Nice guess about Pepper knowing some specialists, by the way. Thanks for stopping by! If you ever do make an account, let me know so I can return the favor.**

 **Halle: *Throws you tissues and a hug* I think I loved every single bit about your review - thank you so much! It's been a little bit of a beast trying to keep the Age of Ultron plotline running concurrently with this one (you should see my pages and pages of timelines trying to work it all out) so I'm super glad that you appreciated it. Thank you! And also, hi! It's fun to meet another member of my faith on here, so I'm glad you said hello!**


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty-one**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

" _Imagine it…"_

Mocking laughter rang in his ears, ice water clutching at his throat, and Steve bolted awake, lungs straining for air, heart racing a hundred miles an hour. His shirt was soaked in a cold sweat, and shredded remnants of his nightmares danced in his head. Reaching out, he groped for Peggy at his side, needing to feel her reassuring weight against him.

His fingertips bounced off hard wood instead, and with a sudden sickening clarity, Steve realized it had all been a dream after all.

Peggy was dead.

She had died ages ago, strangling on ice, trapped in the sarcophagus she had hoped to bring his body back in. She was dead, and he had watched them lower her coffin into the ground, and there was nothing on earth he could do to bring her back.

It had all seemed so real, for a while there. A wife, a son, a hope for the life he'd never had. That Wanda Maximoff - oh, she was good, making him think he had a family like that. Steve rocked forward on his hands and knees, trying to endure the wave of pain and loneliness that was rising over his head.

There hadn't been enough beds to go around, even with Thor still gone. Steve had volunteered to take the floor in the Barton's living room, and now, very distantly, he was glad for it. At least he wouldn't wake anybody up this way. He dug his fingers in his hair, trying to get a grip on himself, but it wasn't enough.

Space. He needed space. He needed to get out of this perfect home where he didn't belong.

Shaking, he bolted for the door, charging out onto the porch and coming up hard against the railing. He wanted to run and run and run and hit things until the throbbing of his body overpowered the agony in his heart, but he was too unsteady to try. Instead he bowed over the railing, gripping it in both hands until the wood creaked, trying to remember how to breathe.

How could he miss something so badly that he'd never had in the first place?

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Upstairs, Laura Barton came awake with a suddenness born of long years as a mother. The sound of the front door, though quiet, had been more than enough. Moving with the awkward heaviness that came with pregnancy, she struggled out of bed and crossed to the window, looking out and down at the front porch.

Then she returned to the bed and shook Clint awake.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The cool night air helped, and after a while, Steve felt his heart rate begin to slow, head clearing little by little. Conflicting memories clashed in his mind - Peggy's funeral, their wedding, the warm curve of her shoulder, the image of their unborn son, her frozen body. Confused, he dug his fingernails deeper into the wood under his hands, pushing through the pain in his head and heart, trying to concentrate.

"Hey, Cap?" Clint stood in the doorway, looking out at him. He was in his pajamas, hair sticking every which way, but his eyes were clear and concerned. "Can't sleep?"

"'M fine," Steve gritted out. He didn't want to talk, didn't want a member of his team to see him like this.

Clint eyed him thoughtfully for a moment, before turning back inside without a word. Steve could hear a low murmur of voices from just inside the door - Laura Barton was up too, he guessed. A moment later Clint reemerged, holding something in his hand.

"Here," he said, holding it out. "Untraceable burner phone - thought you might want to talk to your wife. Always helped me after - you know." He swirled a finger at his temple, and then shoved the phone a little closer. "It's dialing."

His wife. Steve swallowed, shaking the quivers out of one hand before taking the little device and holding it to his ear.

 _Please, please let it be real._

"Hello?"

It was Peggy's voice. All at once, everything slotted into place with a rush, and Steve lost his breath under the onslaught of sudden relief, swaying heavily against the railing.

On the other side of the country, Peggy frowned, sitting up in bed and holding the phone a little more firmly against her ear. "Hello?" she tried again, groping for the bedside lamp and squinting through the yellow glow at the clock. Who on earth would be calling her in the middle of the night?

"Peggy?"

She knew that voice, and her heart contracted with sudden panic, breath coming more quickly. Steve hadn't sounded like that in ages - not since he drove a plane into the sea. "Steve? What's happening? Are you all right?"

He didn't answer, and for the first time she realized she could hear his breathing over the line, heavy and uncertain. Someone else seemed to be talking in the background, and then Clint's voice came on.

"He's okay," he reassured her. "At a safehouse. Nobody's injured, just - real tired. I thought he might want to talk to you."

Peggy moistened her lips. Her fright seemed to have woken the baby - she could feel him kicking energetically. "Right, thank you. Put Steve back on, if you will." She beat back the unbidden visions of her husband dying somewhere, and tried to focus on what she actually knew.

Maria Hill had told her that the team was under radio silence at a safehouse. She'd seen the news footage of the debacle in Africa, and understood the need, but was still angry at herself for missing Steve's call while she was at her appointment.

" _He asked for you,_ " Maria had explained at the time. " _Sounded tired. The whole team got hit hard with something, but Barton didn't say what_."

"Peggy?" Steve's voice came over the line again, sounding weary and raw.

"I'm here," she promised, pouring every ounce of soothing strength she possessed into her words. "Darling, are you someplace you can sit down?"

On the other end of the line, Steve turned to Clint with a nod of thanks, waiting until the other man had returned to the house before falling to his knees with a dull thud. Physical and emotional exhaustion dragged heavily at him. "Yeah. Are you okay?"

"We are, yes." Peggy smoothed her hand over her stomach, wishing desperately that she could be with him. "Are you? What happened?"

Steve opened his mouth to respond and suddenly found he had no words. The Maximoff girl's poisonous dream fluttered in the corners of his mind still, and he shook his head hard. "Peg, I - I - just talk to me?"

Peggy looked around the room for inspiration, and then caught sight of the window. "Steve, can you see the stars?"

It took a minute for his tired brain to translate her question, but when he did, he tipped his head back against the railing. "I see 'em."

"Good." Peggy hauled the top blanket off her bed, tugging it around her shoulders as she sat on the floor, leaning against the glass of the window. "So do I." Only a few stars were really visible through New York's light pollution, but it was the thought that counted in the end.

Swallowing hard, the captain focused on the winking dots of light as though they were his salvation. "Peggy…"

She talked to him, telling him all the trivial things about the day, nattering on and on about truly inane things that didn't matter in the least, and that neither one would ever remember. It was the sound of her voice that he needed, not the words she chose to use.

This hadn't happened many times before, and never this severely. Bad dreams weren't unusual for either of them, and Steve often had trouble distinguishing reality afterwards, but this felt different somehow.

At last she heard his breathing calm, become less ragged, and his voice sounded more normal when he spoke again. "Sorry about that, Peg."

"Can you tell me what that was all about?" she asked, but Steve shook his head, momentarily forgetting she could not see him.

"The Maximoff girl," he finally explained. "She can touch a man's mind - make him see things, hear things."

Peggy bit her lips. Whatever he had seen must have had to do with her or the baby or Bucky - nothing else could shake him that badly. "We're quite all right," she promised again.

For a moment, neither one spoke, just content to have a link to the other, however tenuous. Steve finally broke the silence.

"How'd that appointment go?" he asked. "I've been thinking about you all day. Tried to call before we went dark, but you weren't back yet."

Peggy pulled the blanket a little tighter around herself. This was a conversation she had hoped to have in person with him, or at least when he wasn't caught in the aftermath of a nightmare, but it couldn't be helped. If she tried to put it off now, he would only insist, and then worry more afterwards.

"Right," she said, and took a deep breath to calm the butterflies that suddenly raced up and down her insides. "There's something we need to discuss, darling."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _Peggy Rogers strongly disliked hospitals._

" _Train as a nurse," people had told her when she was younger. "Help with the war effort." So she had, and she'd been as good at it as everything else she'd set her mind to. Even when she moved on to her work at Bletchley Park, and later the SOE, her superiors made sure she kept up the image. It looked good in a background check, and the medical training came in handy more times than she could count._

 _That still didn't mean she liked hospitals though. Or trusted doctors - especially when she was hurting._

 _Now, sitting in an unfamiliar medical suite, Peggy regarded the white-coated woman opposite her with an expression so fierce it was almost hostile._

 _Dr. Finlayson seemed completely unaffected by Peggy's regard, simply continuing to sort through the new ultrasound pictures they'd just taken. She had a warm smile and a very professional attitude._

" _I don't want to give you false hope," she was saying, "but the field has progressed in leaps and bounds in the last few years." She frowned, looking at the printout from the amniocentesis test. "I can confirm though, that your son is not a good candidate for either a heart transplant or a Norwood procedure."_

 _Peggy had no patience for this. "I came to you for a second opinion, not to hear the first one reiterated." Steve would be so disappointed. She knew he'd been trying to prepare for the worst, but hope died hard for him._

 _Dr. Finlayson finished her perusal of the reports, and took one long, last look at the sonogram recording of the baby's half-heart pumping away. Then she nodded once and looked up._

" _Fair enough," she agreed pleasantly. "I'll have to do some more tests, but - how experimental are you willing to go?"_

 _Peggy's heart skipped a beat. She thought of the serum, of her husband's agonized roars from inside Howard's machine, of the transfusion that had saved her own life._

" _Quite," she said immediately, and unconsciously spread her hand across her stomach. "Quite experimental."_

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Evidently, from what Dr. Finlayson had said, it seemed there might be another option besides the impossible heart transplant or the equally impossible three-stage Norwood procedure.

" _It's a procedure called fetal valvuloplasty,"_ Dr. Finlayson had explained. " _It's not been done a great deal, and there are risks, but there's a possibility it might help. You and I would need to consult with my colleagues in Boston to determine if it's a good decision for you."_

The procedure was one that involved heavy sedation, a microscopic balloon, and a very long needle, to be inserted through Peggy's skin and directly into their baby's tiny heart, poking open the faulty valve that was blocking growth. If successfully and immediately implemented, it had the potential to allow their son's heart to start developing again before birth.

It sounded simple enough - but the reality of trying to manipulate the end of a needle through two peoples' bodies, into a beating heart no larger than a peanut, and then inflating the tiny balloon to dilate a valve smaller than the tip of a pen - well, it was daunting to say the least. The doctors would be operating with only sonograms to direct their course of action. There was so much that could go wrong - it was nearly mind-boggling.

As his wife explained, Steve felt the cheap plastic of the phone in his hand begin to twist, and hurriedly loosened his grip. The unexpected surge of hope left him actually lightheaded. "If this works?"

"They're not entirely certain," Peggy answered hesitantly. "Best case scenario, the left half of his heart will begin developing normally again, so by the time he's born he'll only need minimal surgery, if any at all."

The stars in the sky blazed brighter before dimming. "What if it doesn't?"

Peggy didn't answer. Couldn't answer. How do you tell your husband that the very thing that could save your child had just as much chance of not working at all - or worse, killing it?

Steve's voice was very quiet over the wire. He had learned to read her silences all too well. "I see." His next breath was shaky. "What about you?"

"Fine," Peggy answered, trying to keep the tears out of her voice. Drat those hormones. "There's - there's no danger to me."

Steve closed his eyes and then looked up past the stars, seeking guidance.

"Okay," he said a few minutes later. "How long before we have to decide?"

As it turned out, there was no time to waste - if indeed they were confirmed as candidates. The sooner the decision, the more time their child would have to heal and grow before birth. In addition, there were only a few doctors in the nation who had ever even attempted such a delicate procedure, and several of them happened to be in Boston for the next few days.

"Can we afford it?" Steve's mind was racing, weighing the balance in the bank, their army pensions, their careful investments. Of course, the place in Brooklyn would have to wait - he would put up with living in Stark's tower for the next fifty years if he had to.

"Pepper offered to cover whatever we couldn't," Peggy's voice had a breathless quality to it, and he knew she was struggling. What he wouldn't give to be there now, holding her. He wanted to fight this by her side, not on opposite ends of a telephone call.

"I can take the quinjet, be there in an hour or two," he offered, but she cut him off.

"Absolutely not. The team needs you - you can't just run off with their transportation."

"You need me too, and you're my wife," Steve replied doggedly, and started to get up.

Peggy felt her backbone straighten. She knew that sound in his voice. This was the man who had been set to run into enemy territory to rescue his friend. "Don't you dare, Captain. The media is still in an uproar over the situation in Africa, and we still haven't been able to track Ultron down. He may be laying in wait for you all to separate."

Steve sank back. She had a point. The last thing he wanted to do was leave his teammates vulnerable. Peggy was as safe as she could be - if he went to her, his presence might very well lead the robot straight to her door.

"So are we doing this?" Peggy asked after a few moments. Her husband bowed his head.

"Yeah." His voice was rough with suppressed feeling. "If it gives him any chance at all, I vote we go for it."

Peggy pressed her forehead against the window glass and closed her eyes. "All right," she said, with a little hitch in her throat that she valiantly tried not to let him hear. "I agree. I'll tell them in the morning."

Steve had better hearing than she gave him credit for, and his heart broke a little more. Still, his wife and baby were both alive for the moment, and that was more than he'd thought he had just a few hours ago.

"I love you, Peggy Rogers," he whispered fiercely into the phone, aching to hold her.

Peggy laughed a little, biting her lip, imagining it was his arms around her instead of the blanket. "You're an unbearable sap."

"And you wouldn't have me any other way," he rejoined softly.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hi, folks! So the research involved in this chapter is pretty much the main reason why this story took so long to write. (Why do I do this to myself?) Also, thanks everybody for your kind comments - it's been a rough couple weeks, and you've really brightened them. Y'all are the best. :)**

 **Hey, does anybody out there speak German? I'm writing another chapter of "Within the Legacy" where Peggy takes on a Nazi, and I need help with just a sentence or two. PM me if you're willing to help! I'll credit you!**

 **Here's the technical points, in case you care. Babies with HLHS are born with only half a developed heart. The most common treatment is a Norwood procedure, which takes three surgeries over a year and a half, and basically re-wires the half-heart so it does all the work of the missing half as well. It's only been around since 1981. A heart transplant is the second option, but newborn donors are almost impossible to find, and the recipient will take immunosuppressants for the rest of their life. Fetal valvuloplasty is an experimental third option that's only really been explored much in the last few years. Results are varied.**

 **Wow. You didn't know you'd signed up for a cardiology lesson, did you? Sorry about that. :)**

* * *

 **lembas7: Thank you so much! And yeah - I mean, it's a sad mercy that child-size caskets are available, but it's terribly tragic that they need to be a thing at all.**

 **ChildofGod: Awww, thank you so much! That's high praise, right there. Every time the stakes are raised, it makes things that much more poignant, in my opinion. I had lots of fun watching clips of AOU in the context of my story, trying to make them fit. Glad it seems to have worked! (And YES! Clint's family is pretty much the best thing ever! Loved them the minute I learned they existed!)**

 **Laughy Taffy: Ahahaha! Oh my word - I'm helplessly laughing at the mental image of your Jarvis sniffing and dripping code through your drive! XD Are you** _ **trying**_ **to crack me up? Because it's definitely working. (Also, Christmas goodies! Thank you! Yummmm…) In answer to your question: I do have a Civil War continuation in my head and partially drafted. Whether I ever actually write/post it remains to be seen.**


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty-two**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy slept in a little later than she had intended the next morning. This made her late getting ready for the day, and then her breakfast burned, the smell triggering a bout of nausea that left her running even more behind.

All things considered, it was not shaping up to be a pleasant day.

Getting dressed was becoming an increasing struggle. Peggy yanked at her waistband again, grumbling as she fumbled across Steve's desk until she found a paper clip to loop through the buttonhole and around the button. Then, for a long moment, she surveyed her profile in the mirror.

She'd done everything she knew how, played every trick in the book, but her days of keeping her pregnancy secret were quickly dwindling. Really, this was getting ridiculous - and yet she couldn't bear to announce her baby while Steve was away.

She loved her son, more than she ever could have imagined, but with that love was mingled a terrible fear.

Peggy had lost so many people who were important to her. The course she had chosen throughout life was not a safe one, and she had paid the price more times than she could count. She couldn't bear to suffer another public loss. If this procedure didn't work, then she wanted to hold her grief close and private for as long as she could, just between herself and her husband and the few people who already knew. The idea of sharing their slim hope and then getting looks of pity from her friends and coworkers when those hopes were dashed was unendurable.

With a determined air, Peggy shook herself out of her reverie, pulling on a bulky sweater and painting her lips a courageous red. She would protect her son for as long as it lay within her power, and shield her own heart as best she could in the process.

It was all she could do.

Still feeling a little sick from the smell of her burned breakfast, Peggy took the elevator instead of her usual route down the stairs. Normally she would head straight to her office, but today she needed to leave a packet of information on Pepper's desk. Turning right instead of left, she took four steps toward the CEO's office and froze, listening carefully.

Maria Hill was talking.

There was no reason why the woman should have been in that room right then. Shooting a glance at the clock, Peggy frowned - by rights, Maria should have been in a meeting down on the thirty-fourth floor.

Moving slowly, Peggy reached down, bracing herself with one hand against the wall as she slipped off her high heels so she could move more carefully. It was probably nothing, but being cautious never hurt anybody. Shoes in hand, she slipped closer, listening.

"Yes, boss," Hill was saying, and for a moment, Peggy wondered if Tony and the others had returned. Then she realized the woman was alone in the room, talking to someone via one of the computers. "They turned off their tracker, but our external one continued to work. I'll send you their coordinates. The whole team is there, just lying low until this all blows over."

Peggy's mouth compressed. They'd had a traitor in their midst the whole time, then. Carefully, she slid her gun into her hand, and then swung into the doorway.

"Back away from the keyboard," she ordered tersely, firearm steadily trained on the other woman. Maria's eyes went wide, but she did exactly what Peggy would have done in her place. Peggy pulled the trigger, and the keyboard shattered a split second after Maria hit the 'send' button. Her second bullet splintered the top half of the screen where the monitor's camera was located, effectively terminating the call.

Grimacing with annoyance at her failure to stop the data transmission, Peggy retrained her gun on the former agent. "Who are you working for," she demanded, "and who did you send those coordinates to?"

Maria Hill very wisely kept both her hands in plain sight. "I report to SHIELD. That was Fury I was talking to."

Peggy's eyes narrowed. "In case you've forgotten, _you_ are the head of Stark security, and _I_ am the liaison with SHIELD. Try again."

"You are the liaison," Maria was treading cautiously. "I'm just here to - ensure transparency."

"You mean you're a spy." Peggy was surprised at the rush of hot anger bubbling up her throat. The gun in her hand never wavered.

The security chief spread her hands in a slow shrug. "I suppose that's a matter of opinion. Your allegiance lies with your husband and the Avengers. Mine lies with Nick Fury. We have the same interests at heart."

Peggy made up her mind. "JARVIS," she started, and then mentally kicked herself at the slip. Of course - JARVIS was down. Instead, she carefully made her way around the room to the phone, keeping behind the counters as much as she could, never taking her eyes and gun off the other woman. She couldn't risk a fight right now. Maria, hands still raised, watched her equally closely as the captain's wife began to dial.

"When are you due?" she suddenly asked, almost conversationally. Peggy's hand jerked very slightly, and she hit the wrong button.

"None of your business," she retorted, wincing internally at how childish it sounded. Clearing the call, she started again, dialing in the number that the one-eyed director had given her when she started the job.

It seemed an age before Fury picked up the phone. Peggy barely gave him time to grunt "Fury here," before she interrupted.

"Nicholas, give me one good reason why I shouldn't put a bullet in this woman's kneecap."

Maria's eyes widened - whether at Peggy's calling the erstwhile director of SHIELD by his first name, or at the idea of getting shot in the knee, Peggy couldn't tell.

Fury didn't need to be told who she was talking about. "Hill works for me," he answered.

Peggy didn't lower her gun, holding the phone to her ear with the other hand. "And why wasn't I informed?"

A long sigh came over the line. "Look, Carter, I don't have time for this right now."

"It's Rogers now, and you'd jolly well better have time." The tone in Peggy's voice was the one she had used seventy years ago to whip fresh privates back into line. Apparently it worked on directors too; Fury hesitated and then offered a terse explanation.

"The Avengers need a pep talk, and we both know you wouldn't give me the coordinates to their safehouse without clearance from the captain. Maria would; I asked her. Plain and simple."

So they had gone behind her back. Had been going behind her back for heaven only knew how long. They had installed trackers on Tony's quinjet, and a trusted member of Stark's own staff was tracking his movements, unbeknownst to any of the Avengers.

This felt very like betrayal.

"We," Peggy promised after a moment to gather herself and swallow her anger, "are going to have a very long conversation when you get back, young man."

Maria made a sound that a brave man have called a splutter. Peggy raised a cool eyebrow as she heard Fury make a similar sound over the line before she cut off the call.

Sometimes she enjoyed being able to swing her seniority. Being ninety-odd years old definitely had its uses.

Hiding a satisfied smile, Peggy re-centered her gun on the other woman, and dialed Pepper's number with her free hand.

This was going to be good.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Here, you hold it like this."

Steve Rogers positioned himself behind Cooper, adjusting the boy's hands along the edge of the starry shield. The kid's eyes were wide, and he was desperately trying not to betray how incredibly cool this was.

"Right, now use your shoulders and waist - if you just throw from the elbow, it ain't going anywhere."

Cooper contorted, and the shield lazily spun a few yards, bouncing off a tree and ricocheting into the dirt. As throws went, it wasn't much, but it wasn't all that bad either. Steve was suddenly forcefully reminded of the first time he had thrown the shield at something. Not expecting the powerful rebound, he'd nearly had his own head taken off before it occurred to him to duck.

It had been a morning of mixed emotions for him. He'd chopped enough wood to last the Barton household for a week before rather spectacularly losing his grip on his guilt and frustration when Stark, who had been needling at him all morning, finally asked the one question Steve couldn't answer.

 _Why do we fight?_

By this point, Steve barely knew. It certainly wasn't to be able to return home, like Stark suggested. Steve Rogers knew better than anyone that fighting for something didn't mean you could go back to it after the battle was over. Some traitorous part of him whispered that he only fought because it was the only thing he was good for anymore, but the part of his heart that sounded like Peggy and Bucky and his mother refused to let him believe such a thing.

Weary, disgusted with himself for losing his temper, Steve didn't have the heart to keep up the endless cycle of introspection, so after Stark left to look at some faulty tractor - and who would have thought Clint owned a _tractor_? - the captain had decided to make good on his promise to teach Cooper how to throw the shield.

It had been a good decision.

Clapping the kid on the shoulder, Steve watched him scramble forward to pick up the vibranium disk. His heart was lighter now - still filled with apprehension and concern and guilt, but lighter all the same.

There was a chance. A slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. Perhaps his own son could live after all - maybe there would be more times like this in his future.

"Can I show Mom?" Cooper stood, shield in his hands, eyes bright and eager. Steve hesitated, and then nodded.

"Just don't throw it near the house, okay?"

Cooper carefully slid his arm into the leather straps, and then ran toward the house, whooping as he went. Steve made a mental note to teach the boy the Commando's howl. Then again - well, maybe not. He wasn't entirely sure how Laura Barton would feel about her son bellowing all over the place.

Clint passed his son on the steps, giving him a surprised and approving smile as though he hadn't been watching through the curtains for the last ten minutes. Steve started toward him, shrugging apologetically.

"Hope you don't mind," he said, once he was close enough to the porch. "He wanted to show your wife."

"You kidding?" Clint sat comfortably on the steps, reaching out a hand to scratch his dog's ears. "You just made his day." He paused, cocking his head at the super soldier, and then grinned, thumping the wooden step at his side with the flat of his hand until Steve gave in and sat down.

"You'll make a good dad, Cap."

Steve blinked, and then leaned his forearms across his knees, glancing around to see if anybody else was listening. "Peggy said you knew," he commented. "How'd you find out?"

When Clint smiled like that, he looked uncannily like his daughter. "The way you opened the door for her," he confessed. "Dead giveaway, man."

Steve started to protest, since he always opened the door for Peggy, but Clint cut him off. "I know, I know. I could just tell, you know? Been there, done that, all that jazz."

They both stared across the open country for a minute, and then Steve idly reached for a Frisbee leaning against the steps. The dog immediately transferred its affections to him, ears perked, eyes bright.

"You want this, buddy?" Steve asked softly, waggling the plastic disk tantalizingly and grinning as the dog's eyes followed his every move. He had always wanted a dog, but growing up poor in Brooklyn - well, there wasn't any way he could take care of one.

The Frisbee was lighter than his shield. The captain inadvertently threw it a little harder than he'd intended, and watched ruefully as Clint's dog took off across the field in pursuit, tail streaming like a flag.

Clint chuckled a little, and then leaned forward, eyes on the man at his side. "So I guess this is your official welcome into the Avengers Dad club. Exclusive membership - just the two of us for now. I'm the president, 'cause I was here first - unless Stark's got a secret he hasn't told us yet."

"No argument." Steve watched as the dog finally found the toy, and began the long run back.

"So when's she due?"

A week ago, that question would have pretty near sent Steve into orbit. Now it hurt his heart like a knife. He tried not to show it, but Clint's eyes sharpened and his forehead furrowed. "Something's wrong?"

"I - " Steve couldn't decide what to say. On the one hand, he didn't want to tell anybody without Peggy, but at the same time Clint looked so concerned. "I - yeah." His throat closed, and he couldn't talk. The archer didn't press him, waiting quietly.

The dog was back then, dropping the toy at Steve's feet and begging with eyes and ears and tail. Instead of giving in, though, the captain reached out, ruffling the dog's head between his hands. Somehow it was easier to talk that way.

"She's not quite twenty weeks," he heard himself say, suddenly. "We didn't find out right away. There's some - complications."

Clint didn't speak for a long time. "Can they do anything?" he finally asked. The dog under Steve's hands squirmed with pleasure, working its chin onto the captain's knee and looking up at him with worshipful eyes.

"Maybe," Steve admitted at last. "She's going in today to find out for sure."

"I'm sorry, man." There was genuine feeling in his friend's voice, and Steve somehow found the strength to nod and accept the sentiment.

Ten minutes later, Fury came walking down from the barn with an irate Tony on his heels, who was going on about Hill and traitors and men in eyepatches.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy hadn't expected company.

Buttoning her coat tightly, she stepped out of her suite and stopped short at the sight of Pepper Potts, who was simultaneously talking on her phone and typing on a tablet. The CEO raised one finger, mutely asking Peggy to wait a moment, and then tied off the call and the message at around the same time.

"There," she said with a sigh, flipping her phone off as it started to buzz again. "That's that. We have plenty of time to get to the hospital. Happy is downstairs with the Audi."

Peggy stared, and then, embarrassed, assumed the CEO had got the dates wrong. "Today's not the day of the procedure. It's just another checkup to ensure I'm - we're - a candidate."

Pepper picked up her purse, and slid the tablet into the padded pouch on the side. "Are you saying you don't want company?"

Truth be told, Peggy did want company, very badly. She missed Steve, and she felt alone and vulnerable and frightened - none of which were emotions she enjoyed. "No, I'm just - aren't you terribly busy trying to put the company back together?"

Pepper swung her fashionable, strappy little purse under her arm, and pointed at it. "This is my office," she explained. "I can work anywhere. Let's go."

Oddly grateful for the thoughtfulness of her friend, Peggy was tempted to relent. Still - "What have you decided about Maria Hill?" After cutting off Maria's phone call that morning, Pepper had shortly arrived with a team of security and escorted the agent to a secure part of the tower. Peggy hadn't seen the other woman since.

Pepper's steps didn't even slow for a moment. "Maria Hill is a smart woman," she pointed out. "Smart enough not to cross me. The only thing standing between her and ten years worth of interrogations by every intelligence organization on the planet is my field of lawyers. We had a little chat." The CEO pressed the elevator button and turned to face Peggy. There was an edge of ice in her voice - she wasn't pleased either. "We ended up agreeing. She'll not go behind my back again."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

In retrospect, they should have been more careful. To be honest, though, it came out of the blue.

The car was very ordinary - ordinary enough that Peggy somehow managed to completely overlook the fact that it was following them in the crowded New York traffic until it plowed into theirs, sending Stark's Audi screeching over the edge of a sidewalk curb and crashing hard into a wall.

Pedestrians screamed and dodged, swearing at what they thought was just an ordinary car accident.

The impact was enough to engage the airbags, jolting both women back into their seats. Everything was dust and disorientation, and Peggy froze for an inexcusably long moment, clutching at her stomach, heart in her throat.

Women lost babies like this, didn't they?

It was Pepper who grabbed her arm, Pepper who shoved aside the already-deflating airbags to kick the door open, Pepper who dragged her halfway out of the car before Peggy's brain finally came into gear.

They seemed to have crashed into a construction zone - men in orange vests stared, already approaching. The car that had rammed them threw itself into reverse gear, running into two other vehicles before taking off down the street.

"You okay, ladies?" asked one of the workers. Peggy turned, trying to keep him in sight as she assessed the situation.

"My friend is pregnant, she needs medical attention," Pepper was saying anxiously, gesturing to Peggy. "And our driver is unconscious. Somebody needs to call the police - that crash wasn't an accident."

Then the barrel of a gun dug beneath Peggy's ribs, and a hand closed around her wrist from behind. Pepper's eyes went wide, and Peggy guessed the construction worker who was so solicitously offering his arm was holding a gun to her back as well.

"Hail Hydra," said the man at her back, pleasantly. "Smile and walk forward."

If the gun had been pointed anywhere else, Peggy would have flipped the man over her head and risked taking the shot. As it was, she swallowed hard and pasted a smile on, inwardly grimacing as she was yanked forward toward the mouth of an open manhole. Once upon a time, she had known all the sewers and subway tunnels under these streets, but a lot had changed in seventy years.

If they got her down that hole, chances were excellent that neither of them would see the sun again.

Ahead of her, Pepper was bobbing up and down - one of her shoes had lost a heel in the crash. "Look," she was trying to explain. "If this is an abduction, Stark Industries will be happy to negotiate for my release, but I can assure you they'll be much more cooperative if you let my assistant go."

It was a nice attempt, but useless, and they both knew it. Peggy cast around desperately, searching for something, anything that could help. The agents - presumably rogue remnants from what was left of Hydra - were good at their job. They had neatly cleared the area, and from a distance it would merely look like they were helping the two women who had been in the accident. The manhole itself was in a blind spot, hemmed in by two trucks and only visible from above. Peggy looked up, hoping against hope. The sun glinted off plate glass windows and metal, but the skies were unrelentingly clear.

Nobody was flying in to save them, not this time.

Ahead of her, Pepper was making as much fuss as she dared about being forced into the manhole, going on about her shoes, her skirt, her handbag. At last, somebody lost patience and yanked, pulling Pepper down with an indignant yelp. Peggy followed, descending the ladder with reluctant obedience, and then the lid closed above them with a dismal clank.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

On the quinjet, sailing out across the ocean, Steve tried to get a call through to Peggy. Her phone picked up to the answering machine three times, so he finally wedged himself in the corner furthest from the cockpit and left a message.

"Hey, sweetheart - we're on our way to Seoul. Something might be up with Doctor Cho. If you hear from her, give us a call." He paused, searching for words to tell her how he loved her, how he missed her, how he wanted to support her, but came up with nothing. He could give an impromptu speech to soldiers of any nationality, but when it came to the woman he loved, he ended up tongue-tied more often than not.

"I love you," he finally finished simply. "Call me if you get a chance, okay?"

Clicking off the call, he returned to his seat at the front and watched the water slide by far below their jet. Weariness rubbed behind his eyelids, but he grimly blinked it back, unwilling to re-experience the nightmares and disorientation of the night before. Besides, he couldn't sleep well on planes.

There would be time to rest later.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy's phone kept buzzing.

Unfortunately, it was on the floor in the corner on the other side of the room, along with Peggy's gun, Pepper's taser, and their purses. Pepper's high heels were on the corner as well, snatched off after she had stomped on the foot of the man who had yanked her down the ladder.

"Peggy, are you okay?"

Peggy's hands were shaking. They had been left alone for a few minutes after being handcuffed roughly to two chairs in a small cement room that opened off one side of the maintenance tunnel the manhole had led them to.

"I'm fine," she promised, trying one more time to pick the lock on the handcuffs with her hairpin. It had been an act of contortionism just to get it out of her hair, and she didn't want to drop it. "We're fine. Nothing hurts, and he's kicking quite a bit. Did you get the - _mm_ \- to work?"

Pepper shook her head sadly as Peggy jerked her chin towards the strappy wristwatch Stark had given her. "JARVIS, remember?"

Ah, yes. With JARVIS down, the emergency alert button on Pepper's watch wouldn't work. Peggy redoubled her efforts with the hairpin. If she could get the lock open - if she could get to the phone - she could call Steve. Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes, fishing for the ratchet by feel alone.

The handcuffs gave just as the door swung open, covering Pepper's triumphant gasp with the squeak of rusty hinges. Peggy shot her friend a warning look and kept her freed hands behind her back, biding her time, looking up at the man who entered with dangerous eyes.

Nothing is more vicious than a mother protecting her child.

"Right," said the man who entered. Peggy knew a rogue Hydra agent when she saw one - he had nothing to lose, and a great deal to gain. "Who's going to be the first one to tell me how to track Stark's suit?"

Pepper blinked. "Mr. Stark does not do the hostage negotiating for his company. Ms. Hill or Ms. Rushman are the women you would want to talk to. They oversee personnel."

The agent grinned, sitting down in front of them. He almost seemed congenial. The men who came in behind them looked less so. Peggy clenched her jaw. Four men - she could have taken them down once without a problem, but now she was trying to keep from any blows to the abdomen. This was going to be tricky.

"Let's get this straight," the man said cheerfully. "I'm not trying to keep you for ransom. There are much easier ways of getting money. I need you," he nodded to Pepper, "to help me track Stark."

Pepper started to protest, but the man shook his head. "You are a cute one," he admitted, leaning forward and tugging lightly on her ponytail, ignoring her scathing glare, "but you're not as brainless as you look. You're Stark's CEO and his girlfriend - you know how to track his suit. He's undercover, and we know he's been dealing with Chitauri artifacts. We want to know where he's going from here."

Pepper took a deep breath. "You must be aware that I can't just give information out like that."

The man nodded understandingly. "I thought you might say that." With a click, he pulled his gun out and levelled it at Peggy's midsection. Peggy's heart flew into her throat, and Pepper went white.

"Now." The man grinned. "I'm going to ask again."

The world slowed down.

Peggy knew he was going to pull the trigger - if not now, then later on. A man who could smile while holding a gun on a pregnant woman was a man who would shoot her without a second thought. She had seen these things in France, in Belgium, in Poland - terrible things that haunted her dreams and pushed her to train more, shoot straighter, hit harder.

Her palms were wet and slippery with nervous perspiration as she clutched the loose chain of her handcuffs. In three seconds she would throw herself sideways and then forward, grappling for his gun. It was a suicide move, but it was better than dying without a fight.

Three...

Two...

Then the bolt on the door snapped in two as the door slammed open with such force that the knob flattened against the wall. A bulky figure loomed in the doorway -

\- and Peggy felt her heart stop short.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Any guesses on who just showed up? And are they friend or foe?**

 **The long wait for this chapter was due to work and holidays and death and the fact that I couldn't decide where to cut the fool chapter. Because it's so long - but then if I cut it, the chapters would be too short... And finally I just figured that you'd waited long enough, so you deserved the whole thing. But do, please, let me know if you liked it. It's been a long week, and your reviews mean a lot to me. :)**

 **By the way, does anybody have any tips on how to keep writing and updating regularly while working full time? I'm (obviously) having trouble managing both. I'd appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!**

 **Oh, and does anybody know Xhosa, or another (preferably eastern or central) African language? Could you translate the words "wanderer," "friend," and "thank you" for me? I need it for something set in Wakanda.**

* * *

 **ChildofGod: (I love that Russian dance!) Thanks for your review, and all your support. You're quite seriously amazing.**

 **Laughy Taffy: See, the way I see Steve and Peggy, they aren't afraid of science and trying new things. Neither of them would be where they are today without taking chances, and I guess they figure it's worth it. Also, I _promise_ I am working on Within the Legacy. :) Trouble is, it's my secondary kind of thing, and these days I don't even have time to work on my first priority (this), so that's why it's going so slow. Never abandoned, though. Thank you for the treats, and tell your Jarvis hi!**

 **Guest: Thank you so much!**


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Twenty-three**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The fight was quick and brutal.

The figure who charged in moved with concentrated power, efficiently throwing the two closest Hydra agents across the room before reaching for the third. A gun went off several times, bullets ricocheting off of metal.

The man who had been holding Peggy at gunpoint swung around with a surprised curse, and made the vital mistake of taking his eyes off her for the briefest of moments. Peggy took the opportunity. Shaking off her momentary shock, she kicked the gun out of his hand and then launched herself out of her chair towards him, catching him across the throat with the chain of her freed handcuffs.

He tumbled to the floor; she landed hard on top of him, struggling to subdue him as he twisted beneath her like a vicious snake - and then a dark steel-toed boot - _not_ Peggy's - connected with the side of his head and knocked him out cold.

Then, suddenly, the fight was over.

Everything was very quiet then, other than the heartbeat throbbing loudly in her ears. Peggy scrambled to her feet, a little off balance. Pepper sat still in her chair, eyes wide as she stared at the man who had saved them. Their rescuer stood across the room, eyes intent on Peggy's face.

Peggy swallowed hard. Her mouth felt dry.

"Barnes?" she asked very softly.

The furrow between his brows deepened a little, but he didn't reply, instead stepping over the bodies of the downed Hydra agents to lean down behind Pepper's chair. Metal snapped, and Pepper brought her hands around in front of her, staring a little blankly at her broken handcuffs. Then Barnes stooped, picked up the Hydra agent's gun, and offered it to Peggy, the grip facing his own body, muzzle pointed safely away from all of them.

She took it automatically, mind still racing to catch up. There were bullet holes through his sleeve; bright metal shone through, and he flinched, slightly, when her fingertips grazed the glove that covered his hand.

Then he stepped away, putting a clear and cautious space between them.

"There are more on the way," he said, and his voice sounded so exactly like it always had that Peggy felt tears start into her eyes. Still, this wasn't the time for emotional reunions, so she blinked hard and instead stepped briskly across the room to sweep up her things, gun comfortable in her hand. Her phone had been smashed by a stray bullet, but she pocketed it anyway.

"Barnes," she tried again as she handed Pepper her broken shoes, but he shook his head, not meeting her eyes. Instead, he took Pepper's elbow with his metal hand, eliciting a startled squeak from the surprised woman, and propelled her unceremoniously toward the door.

They didn't come out the way they'd gone in. Barnes hustled them through a narrow maintenance tunnel and up a dimly-lit flight of stairs, pausing only once to jerk out a knife and sever a fat bundle of the electric cables that were strung along the walls. He didn't bother to explain himself, and neither woman asked.

Finally, he broke the lock on a door, and the three of them stepped out into the dank air of a narrow alley. Regardless of how stale it was, Peggy took a deep breath, filling her lungs, unmeasurably grateful for the sliver of blue sky visible between the tops of the buildings around her.

Barnes released Pepper's arm at once, and retreated to the other side of the alley. Unabashed, Peggy took the chance to get a good look at him.

Her initial impression had been correct. Barnes was _big_ , far bulkier than he'd ever been during the war Gone was any hint of the youthful softness that had once hovered around his mouth and chin - sometime in the past seventy years his features had matured.

"Where on earth have you been?" she heard herself demand rather more sharply than she had meant. Shock and relief and urgency mingled in her voice, and it surprised her to discover that she sounded not unlike her own mother. "Have you been watching us all this time?"

Blue eyes flickered away from her face; that was all the confirmation she needed.

"Come back to the tower with me," she begged, suddenly knowing that it wasn't going to happen, but needing to try. "Steve's out of town, but he'll want to see you."

It was a mistake to ask. The wary look around Bucky's eyes deepened, and he glanced around as if feeling the air. Then he turned wordlessly into the darkness of the alley.

"Why did you save us?"

The question didn't come from Peggy. Pepper stood barefoot in the unkept rubble, broken heels dangling from her hand. Her face was pale, but her lips were in a determined line.

Bucky paused, poised on one foot as if about to fly. Then he jerked his head in Peggy's direction. His eyes flickered, as though he couldn't quite manage to look at her, but was too fascinated not to.

"I've seen you with - with…" He trailed off, perhaps unable to say his old friend's name, and then tried again, addressing Pepper. "She looks like someone," he admitted, and his voice dropped so low it was barely audible in the hush of the lonely alley. "Someone I - think I used to know."

Then he was gone for good, sprinting powerfully into the darkness. She darted after him, but before she'd taken more than half a dozen steps he had vanished. Peggy felt her knees turn to jelly quite suddenly. Why, oh why couldn't Steve have been here at this moment? He would have known what to say. At the very least he could have kept pace with his old friend.

"Barnes," she barked, loudly enough that Pepper jumped. Back in the day she'd been able to make herself heard over an entire platoon of soldiers, and that was the tone she used now. "James _Buchanan_ Barnes, get back here!"

The echo of her voice off the walls told her that he was long gone.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Ultron had indeed beat the Avengers to Seoul. They had managed to win the cradle from him, but the price had been steep. Helen Cho was badly hurt, and millions of dollars of damage had been caused by the runaway train.

Worst of all, Nat was missing.

 _Go_ , Steve had ordered Clint, though judging from the insistent worry and begrudging obedience in Clint's voice as he reluctantly obeyed the command to fly the cradle back to Stark, Steve was going to have some apologizing to do later. That was why he was the captain, though. Somebody had to make the hard calls - and on days like today, he hated it.

Personally, he didn't believe Natasha was dead; didn't _want_ to believe her dead. He'd seen her survive far worse. Besides, surely Ultron would be rubbing it in their faces already if she was.

Just now, he had other problems to work with. Two of them, actually. They stood still, facing him, though he knew without a doubt that they could leave him far behind or send him to his knees without a moment's notice.

"Stark?" Steve tried for the third time, but the comms were well and truly down. Something must have gone wrong with it during that fight on the train - it had been glitching ever since. Either that, or it had never truly recovered from the whole JARVIS debacle.

"So - what happens now?" The boy - Pietro - propped his hands on his knees, huffing for breath, eyes wary even as he asked his question. His sister stood next to him, hands hovering by her sides. Faint red light flickered at her fingertips, but it didn't seem to be meant as anything more than a warning.

They were so young. So painfully young. Steve had led soldiers even younger than they were, but there was something different about this day and age - untrained kids passionately throwing themselves into causes without any structure or order. Then again, he wasn't one to talk. The vivid memory of waltzing off AWOL into enemy territory to rescue his best friend rose up behind his eyes.

"That depends on you," he answered, putting his shield on his back, keeping his stance non-confrontational so they wouldn't spook and run. "You've worked with Ultron; you know how he thinks. We could use the help stopping him."

Wanda snarled, lips curling back over her teeth. "We won't work with Stark."

Steve spared a moment to look around, squinting against the sunlight. People were gathering, chattering in Korean and pointing at the train stretched down the middle of the road. If it hadn't been for the twins, he hated to think how many people would have died.

Speaking of which - he had to make sure Doctor Cho was all right, satisfy himself that Nat truly wasn't lying in a local hospital somewhere, and then find a way back to America. Wanda seemed convinced that Stark would misuse the power in Helen's cradle, and he admitted to a nagging tingle of doubt on that point as well.

Tony wouldn't mean to cause harm, but then - he hadn't meant to make a 'murder bot' either.

"Well, you kinda have two options." He stood his ground, eyes steady, trying to read the two youngsters. "Work with us, or work with Ultron. Your choice."

For a long minute, none of them moved, standing in the destruction, eyeing each other. The twins looked tired, frustrated, uncertain. They had been betrayed by Ultron - one who they had thought had their best interests at heart - and were drifting now.

There would never be a better moment to help them turn their path.

"Someone once told me," Steve said suddenly, "that I didn't have to be a dancing monkey - a puppet for those in power." He ducked his head a little, looking them each square in the face. "Now I'm telling you. You were meant for more than this."

They didn't move, so he shrugged and turned, trudging through the debris, giving them some space to think his offer over. While they deliberated, he figured he might as well start walking. Doctor Cho would need medical attention badly, and he was pretty sure dialing 911 wouldn't work in this country. Come to think of it, he didn't even know what address to send the paramedics to.

A breeze whipped his hair suddenly, and Pietro stood at his side, Wanda in his arms.

"You move too slow, old man," the young man taunted, not unkindly. "We'll meet you at Cho's office."

They were gone before he could do more than smile, satisfied.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The first Peggy knew about Korea was when Clint called from the quinjet. Pepper pulled the call up on her screen, propping the tablet up against the back of the driver's seat in front of her. It was late in the evening, and they were on their way back from the hospital.

It had been a very long day.

They had never managed to make it to Peggy's scheduled doctor's appointment. After Barnes had disappeared, the two women had ended up walking back to the tower and calling the police on the Hydra situation. Then there had been the police report to fill out. Peggy had personally led a contingent of New York's finest to the manhole down which both she and Ms. Potts had been forced.

The police chief had been very impressed, as his men collected the sprawled and faintly groaning ex-Hydra members from the little cement room. "You two ladies took on this bunch?"

Peggy had merely shrugged. She'd been very careful to keep Barnes' involvement out of it all. She did make it clear that one of the former victims of their captors had turned up and aided them in their battle, but her description was so vague as to be almost entirely beyond usefulness. After that, she had accompanied her friend to the hospital to check in on their driver. He was doing fine - and at Pepper's insistence, the doctor on call had checked Peggy over and declared both her and the baby in good health.

 _Good health_. Peggy had smiled thinly, politely, aware of the irony. While there was a distinct feeling of relief that came with knowing that no ill effects had come from the car crash, the young doctor had no idea of the issues they were truly facing.

"Thank you," she'd said, and picked up her purse with the printouts of her son's half-heart folded safely inside - the pictures she'd been taking to the meeting where they were supposed to determine her eligibility for the experimental surgery.

She would need to reschedule with Dr. Finlayson as soon as humanly possible.

Thus it was when they were finally on their way home from the hospital, creeping inch by inch through the torturous nightmare that was traffic in New York City, that Pepper's phone finally rang.

On the viewscreen Clint's face was hard, and he kept running calloused fingers through his hair, which was already sticking straight up.

"Have you heard from Nat?" he demanded immediately. His voice was absolutely flat, without intonation. Peggy flipped the purse in her hands shut, hiding the medical papers inside from view.

"No." Her eyes tracked automatically to the space behind him, but nobody else was there. "Where's Steve?" she asked suddenly, a stab of worry at her heart. Her own phone had been shot to pieces that morning, but Pepper had received a message that the Avengers were splitting: Bruce and Tony to Oslo, Natasha, Clint and Steve to Seoul.

Clint flapped a dismissive hand. His words were clipped. "He's fine. Probably. Trying to stop a runaway train last I heard - ordered me to get the cradle here, right before his comms went out. Local news says there's no fatalities reported yet. Stark there?"

That didn't sound like 'fine' to Peggy, but Pepper was already talking.

"Bruce just texted me; he and Tony are on their way back from Oslo. Are Natasha and Steve still in Seoul?"

The archer looked grim. "Nat - fell from the jet," he gritted out, and Peggy could hear Pepper's sharp intake of breath at the news. The two women had become close friends after some sort of initial misunderstanding. Peggy still hadn't managed to get the whole story. "We don't think she's dead, though. Steve's still on the ground, as far as I know."

Pepper was efficient as always, even through her distress about her friend. "I'm sending one of the Stark jets from Beijing to Incheon airport," she announced, fingers flying across her phone. "I can't access his comms, but if you get through to him, tell him to go there."

"Will do." Clint reached for the switch to end the call, but paused. "Call me if you hear from Nat, okay?"

Peggy nodded. "We will," she promised. Clint's eyes softened suddenly into something like concern, and he opened his mouth to say something before pausing, eyes flickering to Pepper for a moment. Then he shut his mouth and nodded shortly, screen fading to black.

Pepper was already looking up Korean news stations on her phone, and had missed the silent byplay, but Peggy leaned back in her seat. She'd suspected for a while that Clint knew she was expecting, but the look on his face just before the call ended now had her guessing, wondering exactly how much he _did_ know. Perhaps he and Steve had talked.

Either that, or the situation in Korea was more grave than she had thought.

For just a moment, Peggy felt her old fear grip her by the throat, heard again the crackle of static over a radio seventy years in the past. Then, physically shaking herself, she turned her attention over Pepper's shoulder as her friend began to look up Korean news stations.

Steve would be fine. She had enough faith in him to believe that.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

It was an ungodly hour in the middle of the night when Peggy's phone finally rang.

It didn't wake her. She was already up, sitting in bed with an afghan tucked around her, searching local news sites and scanning city maps, trying vainly to find anything that could indicate where Bucky had been hiding in New York. She would much rather have been out looking for him; she and Pepper had actually worked up quite a scene over it, but eventually the other woman won out, and Peggy had to admit that the middle of the night wasn't exactly the right time to be plumbing the depths of the city, searching alone and singlehandedly for a man who didn't want to be found. Besides, the compatriots of their captors could easily still be out there, and Peggy had more than just herself to think of, now.

Pepper's argument had been compelling. It didn't make Peggy feel any better about herself, though - hence the late-night internet searches. She'd already sent an email off to Sam Wilson, though he probably wouldn't see it until morning. Now it was merely a matter of waiting until the sun rose.

Her phone rang then, in the middle of her musings. Peggy jumped, startled out of her concentration, and then pawed through the tangle of covers and city maps on the bed until she found it. The number wasn't a familiar one, but Peggy answered anyway.

" _Peggy?"_

It was her husband. Tension Peggy hadn't even realized she was holding dissolved from her shoulders and back.

"Steve - what's happening? Where are you?"

His voice sounded tired, but there was none of the haunted tone from the last time he'd called. " _I'm at the airport, ready to take off. Thank Pepper for the jet, will you?"_

Peggy nodded, absently tapping a pencil against her lower lip. This wasn't the time for news about Bucky. She wanted to tell that tidbit in person. "Tony and Bruce got back from Oslo a few hours ago," she updated him, "and Clint's due to arrive in an hour or so. How is Helen? Is she all right? The news didn't say."

Steve cleared his throat. " _Helen's alive. She's in the National University hospital - Ultron got to her before we could."_ Then, almost as an afterthought, " _The Maximoff twins are here too. They're working with me now."_

The pencil snapped in Peggy's hand, and she winced as the broken end stabbed her palm. "What? Steve, they tried to kill you."

" _No_." Her husband's voice was infuriatingly calm. " _They're kids, given strength without a good direction to channel it. They're scared and confused, but they got good hearts, Peg."_

Peggy suddenly felt herself whisked back to the war, when she'd found Steve trying to coax a starving dog out of a ruined house with the last of his rations. " _He's just scared,"_ he'd explained. Even when the dog made a sudden lunge, stealing the food and biting the captain's hand in the process, Steve had just grinned happily, glad the mutt had a good meal for once.

She had scolded him at the time even as she found herself charmed by his warm heart. Perhaps it was slightly uncharitable of her, but Peggy felt this instance significantly less charming than that long-ago night. From the scant reports they already had, and what they knew of her effect on the team, that Maximoff woman was downright dangerous.

"Be careful," she begged at last. He grunted an assent. Over the line she could hear the muffled tone of a loudspeaker - it must be nearly time for him to board. His voice quickened, rushed.

" _Hey, Peg? I gotta go. See if you can keep Tony from messing with the cradle until we get there, okay? It's - volatile."_

Long after he hung up, she stared at the broken pencil in her hand. Then she straightened her spine with a jerk, resisting the urge to put a protective hand over her curved stomach. Instead, she reached back under her pillow, drew her gun out, and checked to ensure it was in good working order.

Because if that girl was coming back with Steve, then she was jolly well going to be armed. Any dame who messed with her husband's head had Peggy Rogers to answer to.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Guess who's not dead? Me! Looks like Bucky and I have something in common. :) Thanks for your patience. This story will never be abandoned - it's written already. I just have to find the time to actually clean the chapters up and post them. And fix the timeline. Yeah. I have like five pages of hour-by-hour timelines, trying to figure out how everything in the movie fits together. If the timing on any of the Korea/New York/Sokovia things feels off, just know that I did my best, okay? Okay.**

 **Ugh. I've been staring at this too long. Posting it now before I can talk myself out of it. Thank you all for your wonderful support and encouragement! Your kind reviews reminded me to work on this, so give yourselves a pat on the back. :)**

* * *

 **Guest: You were right! Good guess!**

 **HuntedRanger: You were also right! Haha! Nice work. Also, Daddy Clint talking to Daddy Steve was like my favorite thing to write. There will definitely be at least a little more of that in the future!**

 **Cad: You're - right? Kind of? I mean, I guess Bucky's an ally in that he helped Peggy and Pepper, but he's not exactly on friendly terms with all of the Avengers at this point. Good guess!**

 **Laughy Taffy: I do not feel worthy of the delicious peppermints and chocolates you gave me last time, because of the ridiculous amount of time it took me to put this up. However, I did give Jarvis's worst compliments to Ultron, so I at least got one thing done. Also, great guess! You were totally right about Bucky. :)**

 **ChildofGod: :D You are amazing and make me very happy and I'm glad you take the time to comment, dying phone or no. And you guessed right about Bucky, so hooray!**

 **Guest: Glad to have you on board! Also, I'm delighted you liked Sarcophagus - thank you!**

 **Guest: Thank you! Peggy sassing Fury is something I can't quite get enough of. He probably deserves it, anyway. :)**


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter Twenty-four**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

It was after three in the morning when the sound of the quinjet's approach to the tower woke Peggy with a jerk. Sitting bolt upright at the sound, she looked around at her tumbled research - evidently at some point she had fallen asleep face-down on her mess of printouts and city maps.

Still half asleep, for the briefest of moments Peggy forgot her time zone calculations and felt a bubble of hope rise up in her heart. _Steve_ \- but no, it couldn't be. Steve hadn't left Korea until only a few hours ago, and the commercial StarkJet Pepper had sent flew more slowly than the government quinjets. It must be Barton.

It was Barton. By the time she got to the hangar bay, he was in the middle of transferring Helen Cho's cradle to the large automatic dolley they used for transporting things too heavy to lift. He looked visibly surprised to see her up and around in the middle of the night, Steve's larger terry cloth bathrobe wrapped and belted around her. Normally she wore her own robe, but these days it was a little thin to hide her growing figure.

Besides, his robe had pockets large enough to hold her handgun.

"Nat?" he asked briefly, and she shook her head.

"I haven't heard anything yet. I'm so sorry."

He nodded shortly and looked away, a muscle working in his tightly clenched jaw. The load-bearing machinery whined as it carefully lowered the massive casket into place. It was far larger and more complex than the earlier version that Helen had repaired Tony's chest or Clint's side with. Curious, she tried to look down through the panel at the top, but it was just murky enough to keep her from distinguishing anything more than a roughly human-shaped form.

Something clattered in the hallway, heralding the arrival of two other team members. Banner looked rumpled and tired; Tony equally rumpled but very much awake. Banner blinked, surprised to see Peggy up, but Tony didn't seem to notice.

"That it?" he demanded, already moving towards the cradle, tapping rapid directions into the tablet he held. In response, the dolley shifted and then sank smoothly through a trapdoor in the floor with a hiss of hydraulics, connecting seamlessly with the Tower's systems. Peggy had seen him use that system a hundred times to deliver heavy equipment directly to his work labs, but it never failed to impress her.

Right at this moment though, it concerned her. True, the labs were one of the most secure places in the tower, but…

"Tony?" she tried. Stark flapped a hand at her, halfway acknowledging her existence. His interest was firmly fixed on the tablet in his hand, where diagnostics of the cradle were already populating.

Peggy tried again, sinking an edge of steel into her voice. "Tony."

That time she actually caught his attention - at least enough to garner a verbal response. "Yuh-huh?"

Well, it wasn't ideal, but it was a start.

"Steve called," she began. "He's on his way. We need you to hold off on investigating the cradle until he gets here."

She had to try twice more before she got him to repeat Steve's message back to her. The last time he actually looked up, made eye contact, and showed more than a little impatience at her insistence. "Okay, okay, Mrs. Cap, I _got_ it," he assured her, already more than halfway out of the room. "Wait until he gets here. Got it. You can stop now."

It should have been enough, but it wasn't. She needed more than just herself to keep him accountable, but exhaustion was dragging at her and she wasn't willing to wake Pepper after the trying day they'd had.

"Bruce," Peggy laid a hand on the scientist's arm as he started to follow his friend out, telegraphing her motions and keeping her touch gentle. Even so, he flinched hard, startled eyes connecting with her face for a moment before he seemed to realize who she was and relaxed.

"Uh. Yeah?"

That Maximoff girl really had done a number on him. Peggy worked hard to keep her anger out of her face. Bruce didn't need to deal with her emotions on top of all his own turmoil. "I need you to do a favor for me," she started instead, voice animated and friendly, dipping just enough into confidentiality to intrigue him. He nodded, and swiped a hand over his hair, scrubbing at his eyes. He looked a little more awake, then, less dazed. She wondered how much he'd slept since Africa.

"Sure. What do you need?"

Peggy put every ounce of certainty in her voice. "Can you keep Tony from fiddling with that cradle until Steve comes home? He should get here in the afternoon sometime, but we both know Stark needs a minder, and I have appointments most of the morning."

Bruce looked a little doubtful, but nodded. Then the last part of her statement seemed to register with him, and his eyes brightened. "Is it about the…" he looked around, but Clint had already followed Tony out, and they were alone in the hangar. He leaned in closer. "... about the baby? How's it going?"

He looked so happy, so excited for her. Few people knew just how much the man behind the Hulk had wanted to be a father. Even Peggy didn't know entirely - but she could guess enough. This man didn't need one more thing to worry about. She silently thanked her stars that they hadn't told him about the recent diagnosis.

"It's going as well as can be expected," she assured him, and crossed her fingers behind her back with one hand even as she patted his arm with the other. She hated herself for lying to a friend, but she couldn't bear to crush out the first spark of life she'd seen in Banner's eyes since his return, and she didn't feel equal to handling the onslaught of kindly and awkward condolences that she knew would follow. "Just a lot of appointments, that's all. Will you keep tabs on Tony for me?"

Bruce nodded. "I'll do my best," he promised, nodding. He shot a glance down at her stomach, securely hidden beneath the ample folds of Steve's robe, and then up at her face again. "I'll do my best. It's just - you know how he is."

She did.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

It took longer than expected for Steve to get back to the tower the next day. Because he wasn't flying in on a government quinjet, he ended up getting stuck for hours at the Kennedy Airport, trying to explain to the authorities why he was traveling with two foreign minors who were known revolutionaries in their own country and had no passports or official documentation.

"Look," he tried for the thousandth time, addressing the disinterested immigration agent on the other side of the desk. It was the eighth office they'd been re-routed to. "I know we're missing their passports, but I will personally vouch for them until we can work it out."

The agent raised a snarky eyebrow. "Hey, I don't care if the President of the United States vouches for them. No passport, no student visa, no green card, no entry. Especially for these two." He aimed the eraser end of a pencil at the twins. "Right now we have them on a watchlist."

Steve hesitated. The twins were massively on edge, and he could feel they were only seconds away from literally bolting. And while Pietro was certainly fast enough and his sister clever enough to get away, it would only add one more problem to the rapidly growing list of things he needed to handle.

He let his shoulders relax, assumed the most approachable attitude he could. Peggy had been coaching him. "Can I use your phone?"

The agent hesitated, but evidently couldn't come up with a good reason why not. "Go ahead," he finally flapped a hand at the telephone on the desk. "Gonna call the president?" he teased.

Steve dialed in the number from memory and held it to his ear. "No," he replied dismissively. "He's second or third from the top."

The agent looked vaguely interested. "Then who's the top?" he asked curiously.

The sound of heels clicking in the hallway brought everybody's attention to the door, to the woman just entering the room.

Steve grinned triumphantly, and put the phone down.

"Miss Potts. I was just calling you."

Pepper Potts shook the captain's hand cordially - a show for the agent; they'd long since moved past that more formal part of their relationship. "Captain," she started respectfully. Then her tone changed as she looked around at the agent who appeared to be slowly sinking into the floor.

"Agent." Her voice was cool, very formal, very polite. "Let's talk, shall we?"

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy spent most of the day in the doctor's waiting room, waiting for her last-minute rescheduled appointment. Her excuse of a car accident and an extended police report and insurance situation had been readily accepted, but that didn't mean that time slots could magically open.

"We'll get you in," Dr. Finlayson had assured her with a bright smile. "We'll get you in. It just might take a little while. If you're willing to wait…?"

She waited. It had seemed an age. Pepper's hands were full trying to get Steve through customs with his two guests, and so hadn't been able to come to the appointment with her. Bruce wouldn't respond to any of her calls, so Peggy eventually stopped trying to get through to him, hoping that he was getting some much-needed sleep. Clint was the only one who would text her back, but sometimes reading his communications felt a little like translating code back during the war.

 _Is Tony behaving himself?_ she finally messaged him, after failing to get through to anyone else. It still felt weird, communicating via "text," but she'd found it the most effective way to get through to half of the members of the team.

It took him forty-five minutes to respond. When her phone finally buzzed to announce the incoming message, Peggy raised an eyebrow at the reply she saw on her screen.

 _zzzzz? idk. lkng 4 N._

It took longer than she would have liked to translate that as "Stark might be sleeping; I don't know. I'm looking for Nat." It concerned her, and sudden suspicion bit deep and became a certainty. If Bruce wasn't answering, and Clint didn't know where Stark was - no, that wasn't good at all.

Mind made up, she slung her purse over her shoulder and got to her feet. She'd nip back to the tower, check up on their resident science maniacs, and then be back at the office before her name was called.

She was halfway to the outer door when she heard her name - or rather, the name she'd given to the receptionist.

"Elizabeth Carter?" The nurse smiled patiently at the open office door, a clipboard in her hand. "Dr. Finlayson says you can come in now."

Of course, this would happen.

For a moment, Peggy wavered, duty pulling her in two different directions. She could go, ensure that nothing was happening to a piece of world-changing equipment, or she could trust the team to behave themselves and choose to keep the appointment that would tell her whether or not she truly was a good candidate for the time-sensitive procedure that could save the life of her little son.

She cleared her throat, and then redirected her steps towards the waiting nurse.

Perhaps they could make things as quick as possible.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The sun was going down by the time the captain finally got to the tower.

Peggy was waiting behind the double doors leading to the loading dock when the car pulled in. Steve was out in a flash, crossing the intervening space in three long strides, kicking out the rubber doorstop that held one heavy metal door open as he passed through. Behind him, the two young twins slowly pulled themselves out of the car, but the closing door shut them from sight.

For the first time in what seemed like an age, the Rogers had a moment of privacy. Peggy searched her captain's eyes in the heartbeat before he reached her, and was satisfied. They were clear, blue, understanding, and very tired. No hint of witching red shadowed them. He was in possession of himself.

"Captain."

It was barely a breath, but it was enough for him to hear as he closed the distance between them. For just a moment, the whole world fell away, and Peggy sank into the warm comfort of his embrace.

Her husband smelled like smoke and engine grease and exhaust, still in his dusty uniform, but he was alive, and that was enough for the moment. He held her just a little too tightly, and she knew he was still deeply shaken by whatever had happened to him in South Africa.

"Agent," he whispered in reply, voice muffled, breath warm against the top of her head.

At length Peggy pulled back unwillingly, straightening her jacket, mindful of their guests beyond the door. His hands lingered on her waist an instant longer, unspoken questions in his eyes. She nodded, impossibly trying to convey everything she had to say in one comprehensive look. There was so much she had to fill him on.

"Steve…"

She would have told him about Bucky then, but the heavy industrial door cracked cautiously open, the twins peering through before slowly entering in response to the captain's nod. The world sharpened again; Peggy tightened her grip on the gun in her pocket and met them with a hard, passionless expression. Beside her, Steve shifted to face them, but kept his stance casual.

"Agent Carter," he gestured in quick introduction. "Wanda and Pietro Maximoff."

Pietro nodded politely. Wanda tilted her head on one side, eyes narrowing inquisitively, glinting scarlet ever so slightly. Then they widened and a half-smile crept across her face. Her voice was softly accented, and she looked even younger than her pictures. "You are his wife."

Peggy stiffened in alarm, but Steve put a hand on her arm before she could do anything rash like draw her weapon. He squared his shoulders. "Wanda," he chided warningly. "We talked about this."

Wanda shrugged apologetically. "I couldn't help it," she confessed. "It was too obvious."

A muscle in Steve's jaw flexed - a sure sign that they were going to need to have a long talk after this. For now though, he simply said, "that information stays in the tower" in the most serious, newsreel-worthy Captain America voice he had at his command. Then he turned to his wife, back on track. "Stark and the cradle?"

Irked, Peggy pressed her lips together. "Locked in his workroom," she had to admit, reluctantly. The line between Steve's brows deepened as he listened to her swift recitation of the day's events, and his face hardened into the Captain's mask.

She knew he wasn't angry at her, only at Stark, but Peggy still felt as if it all had been partly her fault. She hated being so slow. By the time she had finally arrived home from her lengthy appointment and reached the lab, the doors were locked, and she couldn't get in. The electronic locks couldn't be picked, Pepper wasn't home, and with JARVIS down, she couldn't talk the computer into unlocking them for her. She'd been on the point of taking desperate action when Pepper had finally called to let her know the captain would be arriving in a very few minutes.

"I could have shot the locks out, but it didn't seem quite the move to make," she finished at last. Besides, she'd wanted backup, and with Clint buried in the depths of the tower somewhere, it only made sense to wait fifteen minutes for the arrival of the only man she wholly trusted to have her back.

Steve was already moving towards the stairwell - faster for him than the elevator, and less monitored. He'd have a better chance of getting to the workshop without Tony being alerted first. "Thanks." He squeezed her hand before letting go. "Find Clint, will you? Tell him we need him in the labs; take a back way if he knows one. Stark's gonna do something foolish."

Peggy only had time to nod before her husband was gone, feet pounding on the stairs as he raced up. Behind him, Pietro scooped up his sister in his arms. For a moment he caught the other woman's eye, and then grinned suddenly, impishly, one eye flickering closed in the sauciest wink she'd seen in years.

" _Kapitán Amerika je ženatý_?" he half laughed in a low tone, half to himself, half to his sister. Then, in accented English, he adressed the agent with a shrug. "You fit him."

And then he was gone, following the captain in a blur of motion, the wind in his wake whipping Peggy's curls around her face.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

If he'd been truly holed away, it would have taken Peggy two weeks to find the archer on her own, so it was fortunate that she ran into Clint in the hallway - actually ran into him. He grunted, even as he reached to steady her. "Hey, where's the fire?"

Pulling away, Peggy eyed him closely, catching the way his eyes flickered to her stomach ever so briefly. Yes, she was fairly positive he knew about the baby.

"Steve needs you in the labs," she explained, whirling and hurrying him toward the elevator. "He and the twins are on their way up. Tony's locked himself in the labs with the cradle."

Clint groaned. "Aww, I knew I should've kept a better eye on him. Here we go again." Then he missed a step. "Um, twins? As in the Maximoffs? They're here?"

The elevator doors opened, and Peggy stepped in, pulling the startled archer in after her. "Evidently they're playing on our side now," she informed him briefly.

The doors closed behind them, and suddenly Clint moved, taking her head between two calloused palms and inspecting her eyes closely. Peggy jerked backwards.

"What on earth, Barton?"

He flicked her nose with a finger, and she blinked reflexively, temper boiling as she shoved him away, hard. To her surprise, he didn't seem to mind, raising his hands submissively and stepping back.

"Sorry about that," he apologized. "Just had to make sure the girl wasn't messing around inside your head."

Mollified, Peggy unclenched her fists. She had been told about the battle of New York and Clint's personal history with the possessive power of the scepter. "No harm done," she assured him. "They are on our side, though. Mmm," she cocked her head and modified her statement, "on Steve's side."

Clint fiddled with a buckle on his vest. "Yeah, well, I'll make my own opinion on that one. You got any ideas how we're getting into Stark's lab? If he's doing something fishy, he's probably got it locked down tight."

Peggy's eyes danced despite the gravity of the situation. "Captain Rogers will take the front way, we'll take the back. I don't suppose you know how to get in through the maintenance entrance for the Iron Legion?"

Barton hesitated. "Uh huh," he admitted at last, eyes trained on the steadily changing floor number on the screen high on the elevator wall. "But you have to climb around through some pretty small shafts."

Peggy quirked an eyebrow. "Wonderful. Lead on."

"You think you'd better?" Clint looked sideways at her out of the corner of his eye and coughed perhaps the most fake cough she'd ever heard. "I - it's just that it can't be comfortable for you to be crawling around."

"Oh, please." Peggy checked her wristwatch and then stepped out as the doors opened. "I've been doing this sort of thing since before you were born. Now, you show me how to get in, or I'll figure it out myself."

A reluctantly admiring grin spread across the archer's face. "I've got to introduce you to Laura," he muttered under his breath, so low that Peggy couldn't catch it, and then swept an imaginary cap from his head. "Right this way then, Mrs. Captain, ma'am."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Apparently Wanda was able to unlock doors with her mind - Peggy didn't hear the sound of anything breaking, but the voices upstairs were definitely those of her husband and Stark. Wiggling through the vent exit, Peggy pulled herself upright, pleased despite the fact that their covert back-door entrance was now unnecessary. Ninety-odd years old and almost five months pregnant, and she still had it in her.

Clint was already standing, peering up through the glass. Peggy followed suit even as she adjusted her jacket, trying to rearrange it over her stomach again. Things above seemed to be escalating - Steve sounded angry and Stark sounded obstinate. That was never a good combination.

"How do we get up there?" she asked Clint. After all, this portion of the room hadn't been intended for human residence.

Clint jerked out his gun as something flashed above, solidifying into Pietro, standing on the glass just over their heads.

"One sec," he answered, and pulled the trigger. The glass ceiling shattered, fragments of the glass spinning through the air like so many shooting stars. Pietro, on the other hand, was less graceful, crashing heavily to the floor at Clint's feet. Wanda's startled cry echoed from the room above.

"Didn't see that coming?" Clint teased, foot firmly planted on the young man's leg to keep him from running away. Peggy noticed, though, that the gun was still in his hand. Pietro noticed it too, and gave his captor a deeply incredulous look. " _Vážne?"_

"What's going on up there?" she demanded, stepping forward and crouching on the glass-strewn floor.

Winded by the unexpected fall, Pietro sat up and coughed, throwing a half-impressed, half-disgruntled glare toward the archer. "Stark is bringing Ultron's monster to life," he panted, shrugging. His breathlessness and strong accent made it difficult to understand him. "I unplugged the machines - they all talk too much."

Even as he spoke, the familiar ringing of Steve's shield sounded, and the next moment one of Tony's repulsors went off. Something crashed, and there was a dull thump of one or more bodies hitting the ground. Peggy shot upright, vainly trying to see anything through the hole above their heads; the fight must be at the other end of the lab.

Beside her, Clint knelt, gripping the young man's shirt in one hand. "Don't you mess with anyone here," he warned the young man levelly. "Your sister's tricks won't work on me. You try anything funny, I will find you."

Then he was on his feet, charging for the maintenance access ladder that led to the lab above, gun in hand. Peggy was at his heels.

They made it exactly halfway there - and then the entire maintenance space was lit with a flash of white light, a clap of solid sound rocking the very floor they stood on.

It would have been startling to anybody. To someone who had lived in a state of constant alertness during the war, who had lost loved ones in the Blitz, who had fought on the front lines across Europe, it was shocking, disorienting. The unexpected light and noise blinded and rattled her; Peggy staggered back and ducked, braced for the falling debris that must surely come from a bomb landing so closely. When her vision cleared, she realized she had her gun drawn, grasped in both hands, back flat against the wall.

"Hey." Clint was at her side, hand firm on her shoulder.

Peggy took a deep, shuddering breath. This wasn't an air raid, the Blitz was over.

"I guess Thor's back.," Clint continued casually. He wasn't looking at her - he was looking up through the shattered skylight. She appreciated his tact.

"Right," she breathed, voice just a bit more tremulous than she would have liked. Of course it would be Thor. She looked over at Pietro, and saw him slowly uncurling from beneath the shelter of some heavy machinery against the opposite wall. His eyes were wide, the remnants of panic flaring in them. Peggy remembered, then, the record they had on him. She wasn't the only person in this room who'd lived in a war-riddled homeland.

He was so very, very young, that boy. So was his sister. No wonder Steve had brought the twins home.

She nodded to him, summoned up a warmth to color her voice and curl at the edges of her mouth. "Right," she said again, with more decision, and jerked her chin toward the maintenance ladder. "Let's go see what they've broken this time, shall we?"

Clint was faster, clearly impatient to scout out the situation - and Peggy never actually saw Pietro leave. She just blinked, and he was gone, smearing light and shadow behind him. Thus it was that she was the last one up, arriving at the top of the ladder just as something sleek and scarlet and impossible soared effortlessly across the darkened room, dropping light as a feather to land before Steve and Thor, twin dark towers of muscle silhouetted against the the night outside.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hi! Here you go. I'm really going to try to post regularly from now up until the release of the** _ **Infinity Wars**_ **movie, so I'd appreciate your support on that. Tons and tons of thanks always to the magnificent denyz, who provided the Slovak translations for me. Thanks, denyz!**

 **Translations: "** _ **Kapitán Amerika je ženatý**_ **?" = "Captain America is married?" and "Vážne?" = "Really?"**

 **Also, for any of you who liked my story** _ **Sarcophagus**_ **, check out Doc Mui's Tumblr (greenjacketwhitehatdocmui) to see a fanart of it! I'm tickled pink and so of course am giving him a shoutout. :D Thanks, Doc!**

* * *

 **Guest: Thank you! Yup, all planned out - now I just have to wrastle it into submission. Good thinking about the Cradle! Earlier chapters hinted it might not be possible, but you never know what I'll pull on you all… :D Thanks for reviewing!**

 **ChildofGod: *sheepishly peeks out* Yes, I'm alive. Hi? :) Thanks for your review! And I'm glad you liked Steve quoting Peggy. It just seemed like the sort of thing he would do.**

 **Laughs Taffy: You were right! Or - wrong? Anyway, it was Bucky! And I'm glad you liked it. (And yes, Cap needs a parachute - good for you for getting him into one. SHIELD should take tips from you!) :)**


	25. Chapter 25

**Authors note: I'm trying to work toward a more frequently updating schedule, so for those of you who are used to checking for far-and-few-between updates, please make sure you've read the chapter before this. It was posted on April 7, 2018. Thanks!**

 **Chapter Twenty-five**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Once upon a time, Steve Rogers represented the peak of scientific achievement - the product of the best science had to offer. These days, though, things were far stranger. And like everything else in this new world, Steve tried to take it in stride. Sure, there were robots now. And aliens. And now he faced a crimson-colored, man-shaped thing that spoke like Jarvis, looked like Schmidt, knew Ultron's mind, and could wield Thor's hammer.

Personally, Steve felt a little regret over that last bit. He'd had money down with Sam that Peggy would be the first to lift Mjölnir.

He was also still tired from the confrontation in Korea, frustrated with Tony's insubordination, annoyed at Thor's lack of prior communication, and worried about the Avengers' consistent lack of cohesiveness as a team. Right now, though, the thing he wanted most in this world was to get a few minutes alone with his wife.

Unfortunately, if Thor's vision was to be believed, they needed to leave now, urgently, for Sokovia.

"Three minutes. Get what you need," he ordered the team tersely. Maybe, since he was already in his gear, he could spend those three minutes with his wife.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Clint kept an eye on the twins even as the rest of the Avengers dispersed. They stood close together, looking surprisingly young and unsure of themselves.

Okay. Looks like it was up to him. And as the only man here who'd bested them both - well, he felt a certain responsibility. They just needed a little coffee and some new clothes, and they'd be right as rain.

They didn't resist much when he hustled them into the elevator and down two floors to the gym. They did stare, however, when he ushered them to the the big closet on one side and flung the doors open with a grandiose gesture that he immediately felt was probably too Stark-like. Clearly he'd been spending too much time around the billionaire.

"There's lots of extra stuff in the closet there," he pointed out, rather redundantly. "Help yourself." The gym closet was the catch-all for everybody's extra clothing. Surely they could find something that would fit.

Wanda hung back, unsure, wary, but Pietro got a gleam in his eye.

"Anything?" he asked, eying a pair of Tony's new running shoes.

Clint decided it was probably a good idea not to tell him whose shoes they were. Besides, they were very good ones, and the young man would need something more durable than what he currently had on.

"Anything except official Avenger uniforms," he amended, and left them to it.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Stark snagged the captain's arm before he'd made it more than two steps toward his wife. Apparently the three minutes Steve had allotted would need to stretch into something more like thirteen minutes. The quinjet wasn't done refuelling from the trip to Korea, and there were maintenance checks that still had to be run. Tony's new computer system FRIDAY wasn't quite as integrated as JARVIS had been.

Steve said something, anything in distracted agreement. The instant he was free, he made a beeline for his best girl. Lacing his fingers between hers, he finally felt at peace for the first time in hours.

"I've got to talk to you," Peggy said, taking the words right out of his mouth. Her face was serious, and there was something in her eyes that told him this was very important.

"Prep room," he said instead. "We'll have it to ourselves."

Hand in hand, they left the busy, lighted part of the tower, and Peggy fairly dragged him into a small preparation room. The light automatically flickered on as they entered - it looked like Tony was finally getting the tower back to normal.

"Peg," he said quickly, before he could lose his nerve. She whirled to face him, eyes wide and urgent, and spoke at the same time.

"I think you should call Sam…"

"I've called Sam to help…"

They both broke off, surprised that they'd been on the same topic. Steve's forehead furrowed in confusion; he was fairly certain Peggy was talking about something different than what he'd been about to suggest. "What do you need Sam's help for?"

She put her free hand on his arm, looked straight into his eyes, and dropped a bombshell that knocked him for a loop.

"Because Bucky's in New York."

The world froze around him. Steve swore he felt his heart stop, every drop of blood draining from his face. Peggy panted once as if she'd surprised even herself with the announcement, and bit her lip. "I didn't know how to tell you earlier," she admitted regretfully.

He gulped for air, found it, and then squared his shoulders. Maybe there was time…. "Where?" he demanded, voice hoarse.

She told him.

And Steve Rogers saw red.

Had the men who'd kidnapped his wife been present, they truly would have learned what it meant to face a man filled with a terrible and righteous wrath. As it was, he very nearly put his fist through the door in helpless reaction. Anger, fear, the horror of his nightmare - they hit him with the force of a freight train, and he could barely breathe.

"Steve."

Her voice was quiet, understanding. He blinked at the six-inch dent in the steel door of the prep room, and then turned, blindly tugging her to him with a ferocity he didn't usually display, enfolding her.

He could have _lost_ her. All their hopes, all their dreams, stolen in the most useless and cowardly of ways.

It wasn't a new fear. They'd met and fallen in love in the face of the greatest war the world had known. Both of them had lost more friends and acquaintances than they would ever be able to name, and every time they had parted, it was under a shadow of uncertainty whether they would live to see one another again. But lately - lately the possibility had grown even harder to stomach.

"And I was in Korea," he rasped at last, gritting the words out almost angrily between his teeth. His breath was harsh and unsteady and tight in his chest.

Peggy seemed to know what he was trying to say. "You were doing your job," she told him. "And I was doing mine, and Barnes his. He still has your back after all this time."

Steve nodded against her hair. "God bless him," he managed thickly, and cleared his throat, eyes pricking in a sudden rush of overwhelming gratitude.

They held each other for a while longer as his heartbeat slowly calmed, drinking in her warmth, the comfort of her very nearness. Time was pressing though, and eventually he remembered his original purpose in drawing her aside.

"Any news on Junior?" he asked quietly, rubbing his hands the length of her back, trying to loosen her muscles. Peggy had suffered a rather severe blow to the spine at one point in her career, fighting with one of Natasha's predecessors, and he knew she still suffered occasional pain that had only grown worse with pregnancy.

Peggy nodded and then stepped back out of his arms, letting go of him. Her hands twisted together, a rare sign of nerves. "I - yes. Steve, I can't go with you to Sokovia. I'm going to Boston in the morning."

Caught off-guard, he stared at her for a minute. Honestly, he hadn't even wanted her to go to Sokovia. Ultron didn't understand love or family, but he did understand leverage - and while Peggy was Steve's greatest strength, she was also one of his greatest vulnerabilities. Instead, he'd hoped to convince her to go to DC, lay low at Sam's place, get in contact with Fury and help get SHIELD on board.

He'd been prepared for a fight - not for this.

"Boston?"

Sure, Ultron wouldn't be likely to look there, but the only thing in Boston that he knew about was the office of the doctor Peggy had been consulting with.

… _oh_.

"I'll get Maria to take my place," Peggy continued. Her voice was hurried, words tumbling over each other as she laid out her plans. "She's already working with Fury under the table - she might as well do it aboveboard."

"Peggy," Steve started, but she rushed on, breathless. At last he stepped forward, touching her cheek, and she looked up at him with wide, suspiciously bright eyes.

"Peggy?"

She covered his hand with hers, biting her lips. Her fingers were cold. "They want to do the procedure tomorrow," she admitted quietly. "I - the doctor is going out of town, and there's a window of opportunity right now. There will never be a better chance."

Steve had never felt like a worse husband and father than at that moment. First his wife was kidnapped and threatened, and now this. Their family was taking the greatest gamble of all, the life of their son hanging in the balance, and he couldn't be there, couldn't face it by her side. It wasn't as if he could give Ultron a call and ask to postpone the confrontation.

"And it has to be tomorrow?" he asked, but he'd known the answer even before he opened his mouth. Peggy nodded silently.

With a long breath, Steve turned away, pacing the length of the small room and raking both hands through his hair in frustration.

"I wanted to be there for you," he told her at last, voice rougher than usual as he turned toward her again. "I watched my mother do everything on her own, and I swore I wouldn't put you in that position."

"I know." Peggy took a deep breath, and he could hear the way it caught and shuddered in her throat. Still, she set her chin and tipped back her head, dark eyes filled with the determination she had always embodied and he had always loved. "But my darling, someone has to ensure there's a world left for him to be born into."

As she spoke, Peggy busied herself readjusting one of the straps over his shoulder. There was nothing wrong with it, but it was something to do. Steve wanted to argue, wanted to protest that the others could take care of it, but he knew it wasn't true. If they were to beat Ultron, it would be as a team or not at all.

"So, Captain - you go save the world," Peggy moved to the other strap, fingers working away at an invisible defect, eyes darting up to his face and back down, "and I'll do my best to save our son - and then we'll sit down and compare notes, all right?"

Steve caught her cold hand in his, and fervently pressed a kiss against it. His mouth twisted, and he closed his eyes.

"Mrs. Rogers," he finally whispered, when he could speak again, "have I told you lately how much I love you?"

Peggy dimpled, a bittersweet and inexpressible fondness welling up in her dark eyes. "Not lately," she confessed.

So, in the little time they had left, he told her again and again, wrapping her up in his arms, his hands in her hair, on her waist. Then, when her cold fingers were finally warm and he'd kissed the color back into her lips and cheeks, he sank to his knees, forehead against her rounded abdomen.

"Hey there," he breathed, and tried to find words for his unborn son. A sudden flutter against his temple took his breath away entirely, startled euphoria freezing him in place even as his throat closed with a surge of emotion. When he looked up, surprised, Peggy's mouth was twisted into a tearful little smile, eyes wet even as she nodded.

It was the first time he'd ever been able to feel their baby kick.

Bowing his head once more against the fabric of his wife's dress, he prayed God it wouldn't be the last.

Peggy didn't try to listen in as her husband's lips moved. This moment was between her two boys. Lacing her fingers through his hair, she pulled Steve's head still closer against her stomach, cherishing the feeling of having their tiny family together, for however brief a time.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Steve and Peggy were the last ones to get to the quinjet pad, hand in hand.

There was a solemn feeling in the hangar when they entered, and the air was thick with tension. Everyone there knew there was a good chance they might never return. Ultron was not afraid to kill - and if he was prepared for them, there was no knowing exactly what they would face.

"Hey, Cap - gimme your earpiece." Stark was hunched over a screen, working at something. "I need to reconfigure your comm link to the new tower program."

As Tony tinkered with the equipment, Peggy took a step or two back. The inventor was nattering on about something or other to the captain, but Peggy didn't hear it. She took the opportunity to simply look at the man who had stolen her heart, tracing every line of him with her eyes as she tried to memorize him, heart, body and soul.

She wasn't a fool, nor was she naïve. The Avengers were flying into deep trouble - and she wasn't going to be able to help much.

"You love him."

It wasn't a question. Peggy nearly jumped out of her skin as she turned to find Thor's Vision leaning close to her. At this close range, she could see the little edges to his pupils and irises, like a camera lens.

"Yes," she answered with simple directness, scanning him with the same curiosity with which he looked at her. It might be good, she decided, not to be the only Brit on the team - even if the other one was purple and red and gold and had only been alive for a few minutes and had never so much as set foot in the United Kingdom.

Because as long as he had inherited even the smallest part of JARVIS or the AI's original namesake, she felt sure he would be well worth having around.

As the Vision moved on to join Tony's conversation, Peggy noticed the twins for the first time since entering the quintet hangar. The Maximoffs stood uncertainly in a corner. Pietro had apparently found some things that fit him, and Wanda had one of Natasha's jackets wrapped around her shoulders.

With quick, impetuous decision, Peggy approached them with outstretched hand. If they were going to take her place by her husband's side in this mad venture, the least she could do was to to extend the formal welcome that she'd withheld at their first meeting.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

At long last, technical minutiae complete, Steve retrieved his earpiece from Stark and straightened, looking around the room and mentally checking off the members of his team as his gaze crossed them. Bruce in particular caught his eye; the man paced nervously next to the quinjet.

"Doctor Banner," he called, coming closer. The doctor jerked his head up and took a step back, but Steve pressed on. "Are you all right?"

"I shouldn't be going," Bruce admitted. Steve had never seen him look quite this defeated. "There'll be civilians; kids. I put everybody at risk by being there."

"You have more control than you give yourself credit for," the captain argued, but the tired resignation never lifted from his friend's face, and he shook his head heavily. A thought occurred to Steve, and he carefully rolled it around in his head before asking it.

"Does this have to do with the hallucination Wanda gave you in Africa?"

Bruce laughed suddenly, bitterly. "Believe me - she can't put anything into my head that's worse than what's already there."

He'd been biting his nails to the quick, the captain noticed. Swallowing his unease, he nodded and redirected his attention to the room in general. The lights across Stark's screen shone green at last, and he knew it was time.

"We ready?" he raised his voice to ask, and without a word, the others began boarding.

Clint spun on one heel, searching the corners until he spotted the twins, taking them under his wing as they approached. The archer had apparently decided to give them a chance, and Steve was grateful for that. After all, everybody knew that he had been the one to see potential in Natasha Romanoff, bringing her in and recruiting her instead of putting her down like a dog.

Bruce hesitated at the bottom of the ramp before Tony caught up to him and, with a pat on the shoulder, ushered him up the ramp. The captain's forehead creased in concern as he watched them go. Banner had been deeply depressed ever since _Veronica_ failed, and he knew the doctor wasn't in a good place. Still, when given the quiet option to stay behind, he had refused.

Well, hopefully this wouldn't turn into a code green. Steve made a private promise to himself that no matter what happened, he would not ask Bruce to become the Hulk - not this time - not unless the world itself was at stake.

Everyone was aboard then, and the captain gave one last look around the hangar, but Peggy was nowhere to be seen. Likely she had slipped away when he wasn't watching and gone to the large glass window upstairs, ready to watch them fly away as she often did for training runs. He supposed since they had already said goodbye, there was nothing left to say.

Regardless, he would have liked to see her one last time.

With heavy feet, he turned to climb the ramp - and Peggy was there in front of him. Her lips were red, her eyes were bright, and her face was shining with the complete and absolute faith she had always given him.

"You're forgetting something," she told him archly, and then caught a strap on his uniform and dragged him down into a searing kiss. It tasted of love and fierce determination and hope, leaving him reeling even as he took her face in his hands and kissed her back with all his heart.

Somehow, it would turn out all right. He _had_ to believe that.

"Go get them," she whispered, drawing back just an inch, reprising her own words from a lifetime ago. He knew her better now than he had then, knew what she was really telling him.

"I love you too," he answered, looking into her face and committing the beloved features to memory. There was no doubt or reluctance in her eyes as she let him go, and that gave him the reassurance he needed to complete this mission, even as she completed hers.

Tony stared at him, jaw dropped, as Steve stepped into the jet, door sealing behind him with a hiss. "What," he asked slowly, "was all that about? I've like never seen you guys make out before."

The captain couldn't help the smile on his face as he settled into his seat, watching Peggy's figure grow smaller as the quinjet left the hangar. "It's called being married," he retorted. "You should try it sometime."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hi, again! See, I meant it when I said regular updates. ) If you're confused by Tony's shock, remember that in earlier chapters it was mentioned that S and P are very conservative in their public displays of affection.**

* * *

 **Emma: Thank you for reviewing! I'm so glad you like their relationship. I've spent ages looking at every real-life couple I admire and trying to somehow get that across in this story, and it sounds like it must have worked. :) I'm delighted that you're enjoying. Thanks again!**

 **Arwen55: So glad you're enjoying it! Hope all is well with you. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **Laugh Taffy: Ahhh! *ducks falling candy, catches a lollipop in my mouth* Thanks! I love caramels. And you're right - it was definitely high time to get Steve up to date on the Bucky situation. Peggy agrees with you. Thanks for reviewing!**


	26. Chapter 26

**Author's note: Remember twenty chapters ago when Peggy visited Coulson? Yes? No? Well, keep it in mind.**

 **Chapter Twenty-six**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy watched until the quinjet shrank and vanished into the clouds. The hangar suddenly seemed very large and empty, but she straightened her back, heart still glowing from their farewell kiss.

"Right," she said to nobody in particular. "FRIDAY, please close the hangar doors." Then, with a brisk purpose in her step, she left the docking bay and caught the elevator.

There was work to be done.

Peggy's dressing table was a semi-tidy jumble of scarves, hairpins, and makeup, in direct contrast to her husband's bedside table which was neat as the proverbial pin. Once she'd reached her room, Peggy rifled through the odd assortment, turning things over in reckless abandon as she looked for the one thing that was never far from her grasp in either war or peace.

When a person hides something, there are a lot of variables to take into account. Someplace one person may think completely secure might actually be accessed by janitorial staff on a regular basis, or a person of different height might find it right away. Taping things to lampshades, dropping them behind furniture - even inside the toilet tank wasn't as inconspicuous as most people thought. Peggy had learned that lesson ages ago, working with the SSR.

On the other hand, keeping things in plain sight nearly always worked, especially when the item in question was small - specifically, a one-and-a-half inch silver flash drive.

" _This is the answer to your question," Coulson had said, typing something on a hidden screen and then pulling the flash drive out of the machine. He slid it across the desk to her. "Everything you want to know about the particular project in your file." Pausing, he shot her a very serious look. "Don't use it lightly. If there's ever something really big, then pull it out and take a look. Otherwise, hide it someplace and forget you ever had it."_

Ultron was pretty important.

Uncapping her favorite tube of lipstick, Peggy unscrewed it as far as it would go and then used a nail file to carefully remove the bullet of makeup. Underneath, caked in scarlet, the silver flash drive glinted.

Nobody but Natasha would be likely to look for a flash drive in a tube of lipstick. With fingers skilled from long practice and a lifetime of waste-not-want-not principles, Peggy reassembled the tube of makeup and washed off her hands and the nail file in the sink. Then, carefully wiping off the silver drive, Peggy moved to Steve's office - in truth more hers than his these days - and flipped on the computer.

For such a tiny device, the drive held a startling amount of information. With a practiced eye, Peggy scanned the schematics, maps, and time sheets. She raised an eyebrow - and then the other. Then she reached for the phone.

"Nicolas," she crisply greeted when the line was picked up. She didn't bother to sound particularly cordial. "We need to talk."

It took a while to explain. Ultron wasn't in Korea anymore - he was in Sokovia, and the Avengers had gone out to try and minimize the damage.

"The Maximoff twins are on our side now, and we've offered them protection," Peggy informed him, careening on before he had time to protest. "Also an - associate of Thor's." How else was she supposed to explain it? If she identified him as a joint creation of Ultron and Tony, the red-skinned android would be doomed from the start.

"Another Asgardian?" Fury sounded curious. "We haven't had any readings indicating another Einstein-Rosen bridge."

"He's not Asgardian," Peggy responded evasively. "He's red, and wears a cape. At least, he did last time I saw him. He also flies."

Fury's curiosity was palpable, even over the phone, so Peggy adroitly changed the topic. "Speaking of which, they need backup. I told them I'd call you in."

She could practically feel his mood darken, even over the phone line. "First of all, I'm retired. And second, nobody 'calls SHIELD in.'" The sound of creaking leather came over the line - he must be shifting uneasily in his chair. "Besides, we've got nothing big enough and fast enough to get over there. The Avengers can handle this."

"The day you retire completely is the day I eat my hat," Peggy retorted promptly and with heat. Nick Fury couldn't have left the organization entirely alone if he'd tried, and they both knew it perfectly well. "Wanda Maximoff and Thor's associate both swear that Ultron plans to destroy all human life on the earth. I think that's enough to warrant a helping hand from SHIELD."

The mutter that came over the line was not encouraging. Peggy sighed resignedly, looked at the flash drive and the images flashing on the computer screen in front of her, and played her trump card.

"I need you to call in Theta Protocol."

Dead silence resonated over the line. Peggy's lips curled into a triumphant smile.

"Someone needs to put a paper bag over Coulson's head," Fury finally grumbled. "Theta Protocol is SHIELD's last ace. We're not about to pull it out until it's absolutely necessary. I'll wait and see if it's needed."

Something snapped in Peggy's chest. "Oh no, you don't." Her voice dropped, low and deadly, throbbing with feeling. "This is what SHIELD is supposed to be - protection, not reaction. There are good men and women out there, fighting with the expectation of backup. Now, call in Theta Protocol - or I'll do it myself."

She knew then that she had won, even without seeing Fury's face.

Theta Protocol was the code name for the last remaining rotor-style helicarrier. It had survived the Battle of New York before being retired in favor of the new repulsor engine models, which had subsequently been destroyed by Captain Rogers when he took down Project Insight. In the resulting tumult, Fury and a handful of his trusted agents had managed to get the last helicarrier off the books and smuggled to a repair dock.

Or rather, they'd gotten it _mostly_ off the books. Even the most skillful paperwork manipulation was unable to completely make a 150,000 ton amphibious aircraft and the corresponding repair location vanish entirely. There were enough small hints left over that Peggy, who was scouring old SHIELD records for mention of their erstwhile friend, had caught on, and confronted Coulson.

She'd known that such a thing might come in handy - and tonight it had.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

In the end, SHIELD relented. Even though it was almost midnight, they called in a handful of their most trusted to make up the crew complement.

Rather to Peggy's surprise, she was invited to accompany the helicarrier.

"Give me ten minutes and I'll call you back," she'd told him, and slipped out of the suite and down the hall.

" _Agent_ Hill."

The security chief flinched just slightly - in anybody else, it would have been a full on jump of surprise. Few people could sneak up on Maria Hill, but apparently Peggy Carter Rogers was one of them.

"Agent Carter," she responded, curious despite herself. "What's up?"

"Theta Protocol is up. At least, it will be shortly." Peggy eyed Maria closely as she spoke, and while the SHIELD agent was pretty sure her mask was impenetrable, she couldn't help feeling just a touch antsy at the scrutiny. After all, this was Peggy Carter, legendary founder and director of SHIELD, sweetheart and fellow soldier and wife of Captain America. Maria had even written the essay in her SHIELD entrance exam on her.

But this was also the woman who'd been holding her at gunpoint only a few days before. And judging from the stress on Maria's title, she was still less than thrilled about being uninformed of the agent's true alliance and active SHIELD status.

"Theta Protocol?" Maria asked instead.

Peggy threw her a long-suffering look. "Oh heavens, don't try to play coy with me, Hill." She leaned both hands against the tabletop. "I've been in touch with Fury. The helicarrier is arriving off the coastline in fifty-eight minutes and lifting off five minutes later to rendezvous with the Avengers in Sokovia. I need you on it."

Maria blinked. She hadn't expected that. "I thought you didn't trust me."

The dark brown eyes trained on her face didn't waver. "Fury does. You're loyal to him, and you've worked with Captain America in the past, and that's what I'm looking for."

Well, put like that, there was no reason for her to refuse. Maria nodded, already mentally assembling the supplies she would need. "I'll be there."

Peggy Rogers gave her one last searching look, and then straightened. "Give Nicholas my best," she called over her shoulder as she turned toward the door.

The woman disappeared, and Maria Hill looked after her before shaking her head in wonder. She checked her watch, and then slung her purse over her shoulder, automatically checking the concealed firearm inside. There would be barely enough time to get her things together and make it to the waterfront.

It never occurred to her to wonder why Peggy wasn't going until she was stepping on board the helicarrier.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The inside of the quinjet was dark and quiet. On autopilot, it soared over the ocean, while the the Avengers tried to catch some sleep. The twins huddled in a corner, Wanda fast asleep with her head on Pietro's shoulder, their hands intertwined. Thor snored, less thunderously than one might have expected. Even Bruce appeared to have dropped off, though his fingers kept twitching, face creased in subconscious dread or anger.

Steve himself lay still, eyes firmly closed, mind almost achingly alert. Whether or not he could fall asleep, he was determined to at least rest. They would need all the energy they could get.

To his surprise, he actually drifted off a little after a bit, waking with a start as Clint brushed by on his way to the cockpit. After a few more minutes, he got up and followed.

He didn't notice Pietro's eyes open, twin slits of blue warily following him across the small space. The young man stayed stock still until the captain had passed, and then carefully began to disentangle himself from his sleeping sister.

In the cockpit, the archer sat in the pilot's seat, looking over the controls. At the sight of the captain, he nodded in acknowledgement. Steve's eyes were quick enough to catch the faces of Laura and the kids before Clint nonchalantly tucked a photo inside of his vest

"Cap. Couldn't sleep either?"

Steve settled into the chair next to him. He didn't need to answer. For a long time, the only sound was the drone of the engines.

"You know, you can sit this one out if you want to," Steve suddenly said, breaking the silence. He wasn't sure how they would manage without Barton, but the last thing he wanted to do was order a husband and father to his death. None of the Howling Commandos had been married.

Clint's shoulders shook in a soundless chuckle. "Now Cap, you can't get rid of me that easy. Besides, I owe it to Nat. She's stuck by me through a lot."

Steve nodded, and dropped the topic. He had to respect the other man's choice.

"How do you do it?" he asked instead. "Combine both lives like that, I mean."

The archer leaned back and put both feet on the control panel. When he spoke, it was with a low enough voice that none of the sleeping Avengers could have been able to detect it over the engines.

"It's not easy," he confessed quietly. "You miss a lot, having two different lives. There was this one mission a couple years ago in Budapest. I was deep undercover on some gig that's probably still classified, and one morning Nat showed up at the foot of my bed." He grinned and chuckled reminiscently. "Almost took her head off before I woke up all the way."

Steve listened quietly. He wasn't sure what the story had to do with his question, but waiting didn't bother him.

"Turns out Laura was in labor," Clint continued. His smile faded and his eyes grew distant, staring out the cockpit window unseeingly. "It was a month early, and Lila was posterior breech, and things weren't looking good. Nat found a way in to get me, and I completely threw the mission timetable up. We dropped my cover, grabbed the intel we needed, and then fought our way out."

His face was tight, dark, but it softened as he went on. "I missed the birth," he confessed. "But at least I was there to help afterwards. Speaking of which, Cap, when Laura has our kid, I'm taking maternity leave or paternity leave or going AWOL - whichever it is people do now."

Steve nodded. He'd expected nothing less.

"So why do you keep doing this?" he asked, genuinely curious. Clint Barton had the American Dream - a wife, house, dog, 2.5 kids - and yet he still chose to go out and put his life on the line.

Clint looked down and absently fingered the fletching on one of his arrows. "I've seen a lot of rotten junk in the world - and I'm in a place to do something about it. When I kick the bucket, I'd rather go out leaving a legacy behind for my kids; a world that's just a little bit less messed up."

That was something the captain could understand.

Neither man spoke again, both sitting back and watching the night through the windshield of the jet. The stars were the same - they never changed; there was some comfort in that.

And back in the rear of the quinjet, Pietro swiftly and silently slipped back to his sister's side, settling her head comfortably against his shoulder once more. His eyes were thoughtful and somehow softer as he watched the two men in the cockpit, only partially visible from his current vantage point.

Silence reigned again then, and the quinjet raced on over the endless ocean toward an unknown fate.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hi! *Squints at pages of timeline, nods* Probably not the chapter you were looking for, but it needed to happen. Next one up as soon as I can pull it together! And can I just say how enjoyable your reviews have been? Life has been nuts, and your reviews are little light spots that make my whole day better. Thank you!**

 **Also, eeeeeek! Infinity War is almost upon us! No spoilers in the comments please. This time I might actually get to go see it in the theater, and I want to be surprised. Here's hoping they don't kill anybody. A girl can dream, right?**

* * *

 **Laughy Taffy: *dodges wildly, then greets ducks at mailbox* Hi! Thanks! That bit about Vision looking like Red Skull was honestly one of the last things that I added, but it seemed to make sense. I mean, last time he saw Schmidt was when the guy got whisked away by the Tesseract, which showed up again around the same time Thor and Loki came back. And the superficial resemblance is remarkable. Glad you liked it!**

 **Agent Bookworm: Oh my word - I am so, so sorry you and your family had to go through that! After studying this, I would never wish it on anybody, ever. (Also, wow, that is truly amazing your cousin lived that long with HLHS. That's definitely the longest survival time I've seen in the studies I've read. I'm glad you could have him for that long, though it must have been so hard.) I'm sending big hugs to you, and prayers for you and your family.**

 **Aslan's Daughter: I have no idea if you'll see this, but I just wanted to thank you for the lovely reviews. Yesterday was so much fun, finding them in my inbox every so often! I was smiling on and off for hours. I'm glad you've been enjoying these stories. Hope you have a wonderful week!**


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter Twenty-seven**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _5:00 AM CET, Novi Grad, Sokovia_

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Novi Grad seemed gloomy and almost alien in the near-darkness of very early morning. Rows of boxish Soviet-era apartment buildings alternated with older tenth century churches and a smattering of smaller, newer constructions, all of them scarred by the years of unrest the area had been through.

Fortunately, the language barrier wasn't too bad.

Natasha and Clint both spoke a smattering of everything, Tony's suit had a translator embedded, and back in the day Steve had fought his way through enough of Eastern Europe that he could understand more than he could speak. Even Thor had that ability to be understood in multiple languages (much to Tony's frustration - he couldn't figure out how it worked) and Vision seemed to have learned everything from the Internet, though his translations were questionable. Bruce was the only one who didn't speak a word of anything remotely related to Sokovian.

"I speak English," he had confessed ruefully. "Hindi, Urdu, some Korean, and a little Chinese. Nothing European."

The twins had assured him that most of the younger generation understood at least some English, but it hadn't reassured him much. So Steve had given him one job - find Natasha and then get back to the quinjet. Hopefully it wouldn't require anything more fluent than the gun he'd been armed with.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team focused on the evacuation. If Ultron was bound and determined to meet them here, then it was best to get the civilians out of the way as soon as possible.

People were everywhere in the dim light. Some walked stiffly, enthralled by Wanda's spell. Others progressed haltingly, confused and afraid. War and disaster were not unknown to these people, or their parents and grandparents before them, but somehow it was different in the cold crystal clarity of early morning. Nobody is ever truly prepared for disaster when it happens to them.

Steve was in the middle of scanning a row of apartments to ensure nobody was left behind when he heard a terrified elderly voice sobbing. " _Nálet, nálet!_ "

It took him a moment to locate the source. An older woman huddled in the door of her apartment building, trying to cover her white head with shaking, withered hands. Her family was with her, trying to pull her along, but she was oblivious, frightened and confused.

The fear of an air raid flashback was something Steve Rogers was very familiar with. That fact, and the obvious age of the woman, drew him nearer.

"Excuse me? _Mozhem -_ um - _vám pomôcť?_ " he started. He knew his pronunciation was probably terrible, but hopefully they would understand it as an offer of help. A man - the woman's son, he guessed - spun around. When he saw the captain, his face twisted.

" _Fašista_ ," he snarled, and spat contemptuously in the captain's direction. " _Nechceme tvoju pomoc,_ fašista _."_

Of all the names he had ever been called, 'fascist' was probably the one Captain Rogers hated the most, right up next to 'bully.' He had given his life in the fight against the fascist Axis powers- how did people think that was even applicable? Face stiff, he nodded politely and started to step back, but the elderly voice stopped him.

" _Kapitán Amerika_?"

The white-haired woman had stopped crying, looking up at him through her fingers with misty eyes. Steve crouched to be on eye level with the tiny, bent woman, bringing his shield around. He knew from experience that the star and stripes blazoned across the front were his best introduction in many situations. The woman's son spluttered, but Steve ignored him.

" _Áno_ ," he told her gently, smiling. "Yeah, I am."

She moved faster than he expected, wailing into the front of his uniform as she clutched at him. His grasp of the language wasn't anywhere near good enough to catch everything, but what he could understand was enough. She was caught in her past, pulled back by old age into the mind of the child she used to be - a little girl during the terrors of World War Two who had idolized the stories of the American Captain.

"Shhh," he soothed her gently. She felt like a bird under his hand, all fragile bones and fast heartbeat. "It's okay, it's okay."

The woman's son stepped forward angrily, but his wife pulled him back, eyes soft, whispering something. He shifted, still upset, but stopped trying to separate the two.

It would take precious time to calm the old woman down - time they didn't have, to be honest. Steve craned his neck to get a better look at the family without disturbing the woman in his arms. "Do you have a car?" he asked. "Um - _auto?_ "

The man glowered, but his wife seemed more approachable.

" _Nie_ ," she shook her head. The two children clung to her hands, eyes wide with terror and curiosity as they stared at the man who was holding their grandmother.

Steve set his teeth. "Right. I've got her, then. Bridge. We need to get to the bridge."

He carried the grandmother when they started out again, running through the streets. She refused to let go of him, clinging tightly with frail fingers to his uniform. Her son glared distrustfully, but followed with the rest of his family.

The bridge was crowded with cars and pedestrians. Wanda openly stared as Steve ushered the family across. Once on the other side, the captain stooped and gently set the old lady down, helping her into her son's arms.

"I need to go," he told her, hunting for the right words. "Ah - _dos - dovidenia_." He had a sneaking suspicion he might be lapsing into Russian, but hopefully she would understand anyway. Peggy had always been better at keeping her Slavic languages straight.

The elderly woman caught at his arm, pressing his larger hand between her two palms, and then pressed her thin lips to his knuckles in a sudden archaic gesture of gratitude before letting her daughter-in-law draw her away.

" _Boh vám žehnaj, Kapitán_ " she called after him as he ran back across the bridge, and the words catapulted him back seventy years to the last time he'd been fighting in Eastern Europe. He'd forgotten what they meant, exactly, but the sentiment behind them surrounded his heart with warmth.

Perhaps they could do this, after all.

Then Tony confronted Ultron in the old church, and everything went downhill from there.

As the first explosions began in the distance, people began to scream and run. Wanda, red light flickering between her fingers, tried to continue directing people to the bridge. She looked terrified and younger than ever, hands shaking as she began to lose control of those she guided. Steve could hear the telltale _swoosh_ of the hijacked Iron Legion drones soaring overhead, and his earpiece was squawking at him angrily.

He set his jaw and thought of Peggy and the baby, and then took down the first drone for them.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _2:17 AM EDT, New York City, New York, USA_

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Shortly after two-o-clock in the morning in New York City, Sokovia began to rise.

Pepper knocked on Peggy's door, and they huddled in the middle of the too-large bed, drinking hot chocolate and watching the increasing number of jerky, shaky cell phone videos in the news as European television stations started realizing something impossible was happening. There was no point in trying to go to sleep - they would need to leave for Boston soon anyway. Pepper had commissioned a private plane to get them there.

Peggy looked pale. She held her mug tightly in red-tipped, white-knuckled fingers, but kept her voice steady. "Is this something that often happens? You know, in this day and age?"

Pepper shook her head. In her oversized, faded pink pajamas, she looked ten years younger. "Flying countries? Um, no. Not at all."

The hot chocolate gave Peggy heartburn, and she set the mug on the nightstand, very carefully. Looking at the clock, she calculated the time difference and the speed of the helicarrier, trying to work it all out in her head. If Sokovia kept rising, she knew that at some point the air would eventually get too thin to breathe.

And how had it happened? Of course it had something to do with Ultron, but what exactly had he done? Would it clear earth's gravity or come smashing down, and would other parts of the earth start peeling off as well? There were far more questions than answers in this equation, and Peggy didn't like it.

"Do you think they can set it down safely?" she asked at last.

Pepper didn't know.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _12:06 PM CET, Novi Grad, Sokovia_

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Dust gritted between the captain's teeth as he set his jaw and looked out over the clouds. Unnatural wind blew through his hair as Sokovia continued its ascent, cooling the sweat at the back of his neck until it felt like an icy hand.

It wasn't the first time he'd seen a view like this; especially with this sense of helpless doom throbbing with every pound of his heart.

He had laid his life down before - laid it down willingly, grieving more for the fact that he would never see his girl again than he did over his own impending death. And yet he _had_ seen her again; had wooed her, married her, started a family, learned what it was to love more dearly than he'd ever thought possible.

A man couldn't ask for more.

So if he could save his family's future by giving his own to stop this rock from plunging into the earth and ending all humanity, then he would do so - a hundred times over if necessary. But he couldn't make that call for the civilians on this flying death trap, and he'd made a private promise to himself that he would find a way to get Clint off at any cost.

After all, the other man had a family too. Had _kids._ And if Steve couldn't get home himself, then he was bound and determined to find a way home for his friend and as many others as possible.

Aching fingers curled into stubborn fists, and he looked across at Romanoff. She looked peaceful enough at the idea of going out in a blaze of glory, but maybe she would have an idea…

Wait a minute.

Were those _engines_ he could hear?

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _6:06 AM EDT,_ _Boston, Massachusetts, USA_

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Pepper Potts was nothing short of a wonder.

"I'm family," she told the nurse at the hospital, sidestepping adroitly as they tried to make her stay in the main waiting room. A warm wash of gratitude almost brought tears to Peggy's eyes at the thought she wouldn't have to go through this completely alone.

Now, this was ridiculous. Mustn't be maudlin. She'd faced worse odds before without a soul at her back.

"You don't mind, do you?" asked Pepper rather anxiously as they waited in a little hospital room. Peggy twisted her hands together in her lap, picking at the hospital gown they'd given her. Her nail polish was chipped, she noticed with the part of her brain that was grasping desperately at normality.

"Not at all," she assured her friend. "I'm quite grateful, actually."

Pepper sat next to her, and after a minute, reached out. She didn't quite touch Peggy's stomach, drawing her hand back before making contact. It was an unusual breach in the normally highly professional woman's manners, and Peggy realized she wasn't the only one struggling with the situation. They shared a common kinship - they both had men on the other side of the world.

"You're still not showing very much," Pepper noticed. "When my sister was pregnant, she looked like she swallowed a whale by the time she was six months."

Peggy surprised herself by laughing. She was terrified, hands cold and shaking, goosebumps prickling on her skin, but smiling was better than sobbing outright. "I think he's climbing up inside my ribcage," she confessed. "He's Steve's son - he's bound to be difficult."

Pepper patted her hand, and the two sat in silence. Then the CEO's phone chimed, and she dug it out, checking her messages. Tension uncoiled from her shoulders, and she drew a long breath. "The helicarrier's arrived," she announced, relief clear in her voice. "Hill says they're starting the evacuation. Everyone on the team is okay."

An odd sound forced its way unexpectedly through Peggy's tight throat - something like a gulping hiccup. Then she bowed her head, fist clenched over her mouth. Her eyelashes were very wet.

Pepper put down the phone and turned, pulling Peggy into her arms. She was surprisingly strong for such a slight woman, and Peggy only put up a token protest before giving in, leaning into her friend's shoulder. The tight knot of fear that had been knotted in her chest ever since Sokovia began to rise off the ground had suddenly loosened to a much more bearable level. She knew Steve wouldn't leave until the last person was safe, but at least this way he had a chance.

"Elizabeth Carter?" The nurse was at the door. Peggy blinked hard, breathed once, and then pulled away, game face firmly in place. She squeezed Pepper's hand before letting go, and both women nodded to each other solemnly.

Terrified they may be, hearts torn apart with worry over their loved ones, over Sokovia and the team and the fate of the rest of the world - but now it was time for Peggy to do her duty as a mother. If there was a chance for her boy, this was it.

"Keep tabs on the helicarrier for me," she quietly requested, though they both knew there was no need to ask.

Pepper kept her updated with Hill's sporadic texts until they rolled her into the operating room.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The operating room was white, with stark light glinting off the chrome trimmings, and all the doctors she'd consulted with made anonymous by face masks. Peggy wouldn't admit it, but her hands were shaking as the doctor slid the epidural needle into her spine. She hated hospitals, hated needles, hated the lot of it. The icy rush of the anesthetic and the feel of her lower body slowly fading away left her on the verge of panic, and she dug her nails into her palms.

"Almost there," soothed the nurse at her side, patting her shoulder in a condescending manner that made Peggy want to hit him. She would have too, if she could have sat up.

An hour later, they were no closer to being able to begin the procedure.

"Your son is surprisingly resistant to the sedative," the doctor finally explained, shrugging helplessly. They'd given her the full dose, until Peggy could barely feel her own ribcage, let alone her toes, but it hadn't made much difference. "If we can't get him sedated, we won't be able to complete the procedure."

On the sonogram screen, her little boy kicked merrily, if a little sleepily, stubbornly active despite only having half a heart. He really was his father's son, she mused wryly, and fond exasperation tugged at her heartstrings. It wasn't an unfamiliar sensation.

"My husband has a high tolerance too," she confessed. "I - perhaps you could give him something stronger?"

They couldn't - not without putting her out as well. Peggy had hoped to be awake for the procedure, unwilling to let herself be unconscious and vulnerable, but if that was what it took, then so be it.

"So - your husband?" The nurse was apparently trying to make conversation as the anesthesiologist hooked up the stronger solution to Peggy's IV. "It's a shame he couldn't be here."

Peggy set her teeth at the implication in his words. Steve had wanted to come, more than anything - would have been right here at her side with his hand around hers if the fate of the world hadn't been on the line.

"Quite," she snapped back, and then watched her baby on the screen until he stopped moving and darkness closed over her eyes.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _3:36 PM CET, Novi Grad, Sokovia_

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

It was all over.

Sokovia had fallen, plunging out of the sky, disintegrating as it went. A plume of dust and particulates stretched miles into the air, visible even to astronauts on the ISS. The helicarrier's closed system couldn't completely keep it out - everything was covered with a fine, gritty layer, and the air swirled visibly in every shaft of the late afternoon light. SHIELD personnel tried to issue facemasks, but there weren't enough by far.

Refugees crowded every corner of the flying base, sitting in the halls, huddling together, terrified. The dust in the air meant SHIELD couldn't connect to their mainframe or satellites, and the internet-based translators were down. Every person on board who knew even a smattering of any Slavic language was being recruited into helping settle the homeless Sokovians.

Fury was meeting in one of the conference rooms with the Sokovian political leaders, who were _not_ pleased at being dragged from their homes in Novi Grad in the wee hours of the morning only to then watch their nation destroyed. So with Fury busy, Steve was the one who'd had to tell Tony about Bruce.

That hadn't been fun at all. The billionaire had struggled back to the helicarrier, with barely enough power left to make the landing. Thor arrived minutes later, soaked to the skin and staggering with a nasty head wound.

"Where's Bruce?" Stark demanded as soon as he got his helmet off. "We've got to figure out…" He trailed off, seeing the expression on Steve's face. Then his eyes flashed across to Natasha. The woman hadn't moved a muscle in ten minutes, standing in a corner and staring straight at the wall, back to the rest of the room.

"Tony." Steve's voice was heavy.

It had been Captain Rogers' least favorite part of being in the army - writing condolence letters to bereaved parents and wives and children. He'd never been sure what to say, although he did his best. The brass seemed to think that having Captain America's name across the bottom of the letter would make things magically better somehow.

He had only halfway finished his first sentence before Tony bolted across the room to the computer banks, heedlessly shucking off bits of his armor as he went.

"No," he gasped, fingers flying across the keyboards, uselessly trying to connect to the SHIELD satellites, to his own satellites, to anything. "No, I can find him. I can do this, I can bring him home."

"It was cloaked." Natasha's voice was very even, with absolutely no inflection. She didn't stop staring at her wall. "Your own cloaking devices. And SHIELD's secret tracker was disabled in the fight."

Tony's hand slipped, hitting a bunch of things Steve was sure he hadn't meant to. Swearing hopelessly, the inventor stared blankly at the useless screens. Bruce had been his dearest friend, his science buddy, his lab partner. "Why?" he demanded, very quietly, and everybody pretended they hadn't heard the furious brokenness in his voice, hadn't heard the breath hissing unsteadily through his teeth. "Why would he…?"

The unfinished question hung heavy in the dusty air. Steve was the one who answered.

"Because," he said. The airborne grit was dry in his tight throat. Of everyone here, he was the only one who understood, even if he didn't agree with the other man's call. "When you're in the air, and you're carrying something that will destroy everything you love, that's all you can do. You _do_ go down, and you take it down with you."

Stark's hands curled into fists, anguish in his snarl. "This isn't the same as your golden boy sacrifice play, Cap. No bombs on that quinjet."

"No, no bombs." Steve wouldn't let it show that the jab had hurt him. He'd made the call to bring a clearly disturbed Banner on this trip - he deserved anything the other man could dish out. Instead he dragged his gloves back on over bruised and bloody knuckles, flexing the stiff joints without a grimace. "Just himself," he finished quietly. " _Veronica_ failed, Stark. He couldn't risk hurting us again, and he saw a way out."

Tony's face went white and bleak. The captain could have kicked himself when he realized that he'd been too wrapped up in his own self-recrimination to soften the impact of his words. He ventured to put an apologetic hand on the billionaire's shoulder, but it was immediately shrugged off so fast that an ordinary man would have got whiplash at the motion.

Clearly, he could be of no more use here - so the captain turned on his heel and left the room. After all, there were victims who needed his help.

He could do that much, at least.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hello! No,** _ **Infinity War**_ **did not actually kill me, though you might have wondered. :) Thanks to those who so gently reminded me of their excitement for the next chapter - I genuinely did not realize how long it's been. I'm sure there are a lot of problems with this chapter, but please be kind. I've been wrestling with this particular chapter for literally years, and if I don't post it now, I never will.**

 **Also, so much thanks to the amazingly wonderful denyz! Denyz is a fantastic person, and writes really fun Clark Kent/Superman stories, so if you like that kind of thing, head on over and check them out! Denyz was patient and kind enough to help me with the Slovak translations - the English version is below for the rest of us.**

" _Nálet, nálet!" - "Air raid, air raid!"  
"Môžem vám pomôcť?*" - "Can I help you?" (Steve's pronunciation of this is atrocious - this is the correct spelling.)  
"Nechceme tvoju pomoc, fašista." - "We don't need your help, you facist."  
_" _Kapitán Amerika?" - "Captain America?"  
"Áno." - "Yes"  
_" _Dovidenia" - "Until we see each other again/goodbye." (Steve almost gets it mixed up with the Russian "do svidaniya," which luckily means pretty much the same thing.)  
"Boh vám žehnaj, Kapitán." - "God bless you, Captain."_

 **I apologize for not responding to everyone's reviews. I usually do it before posting the next chapter, but you've all certainly waited long enough for this one, so I thought I'd post it first and then catch up on replying to your reviews later. :)**

* * *

 **Aslan's Daughter: thanks so much for reading! Wow, I hope your midterms went well! (And yes, I know that was literally months ago, but still, the sentiment remains the same.) :D**

 **ChildofGod: :D Your reviews never fail to make me smile. Thank you so much! Also, glad you liked Steve betting on Peggy. I get the feeling that's a recurring thing in his life!**

 **Laughy Taffy: Yeah, when Peggy takes things into her hands, you know it's getting real! Thanks so much for the review! *dodges flying ice cream truck, picks a treat out of the trailing debris***


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter Twenty-eight**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _11:23 AM EDT, Boston, Massachusetts, USA_

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy clawed her way back to consciousness as though she was scaling the inside of a well. Her mouth felt dry, and she was freezing. With a sudden jolt of urgency she reached blindly for her stomach, heart lurching sluggishly against her ribs.

"Hey." A gentle pair of hands caught hers, holding them steady _._ _Pepper_. "Peggy, are you awake?"

Was she awake? She supposed so. "C-cold," she managed through chattering teeth, and Pepper's hands disappeared. The next moment something warm settled over her, and she couldn't help the little sound of relief that escaped.

"Baby?" she tried, keeping things to one-word sentences for now. Pepper didn't answer right away, and suddenly Peggy found the panicked strength to haul heavy eyelids open.

She must have looked horrified, because Pepper's hand was around hers again, administering soothing little pats. "They're not sure yet. They had to pull out early because of some fluid around his heart, but things looked encouraging."

Pepper's voice went on - she said something else about another checkup in a few hours, but Peggy didn't hear a word of it. Her vision blurred and she shut her eyes against the relieved tears, refusing to let them fall. Encouraging. She could live with that diagnosis for now.

"Steve?" she asked next.

This time the pause was longer. Peggy felt her heart shudder to a stop; she tried to steel herself before opening her eyes again.

"He - mm - he went down, didn't he?"

Her voice shook miserably. Wretched drugs. Her emotional walls were all in pieces; there was nothing left to shore up her defenses.

Pepper squeezed her hand tightly. "We don't know that."

The CEO was outwardly very calm, methodically laying out the facts despite her own undercurrent of strain so strong it was almost palpable. "From the satellite images it looks like Sokovia has blown up. There's too much dust in the air to get through to the helicarrier, but it's built to survive extreme conditions. He's probably fine."

Peggy bit her lips and turned her head away, breathing deeply through her nose until she was sure her face wouldn't crumple. The evacuation had been underway - there was a good chance Steve had been able to make it onto one of the transports. Still, she knew him well enough to know that he would have been the last in line, the last on board the helicarrier. If anybody had still been on the flying rock when it blew up, he would have been with them.

With a long breath, she pulled her hand out from Pepper's and tried to sit up, scowling when her lower body wouldn't move. The epidural still hadn't worn off.

"Wheelchair," she ordered. "Let's go."

Pepper didn't move. "The doctor wants to keep you here for observation," she explained again. "They're not sure yet if the operation was successful or not."

Peggy eyed the door and tried to calculate her chances of being able to drag herself out by her arms, but the prospect wasn't attractive. Besides, she was still in a hospital gown, chilled to the bone, and there was a chance her baby still needed help. With a groan, she flopped back against the pillow. "I shouldn't be here," she fretted. "I should be there with him."

The CEO nodded understandingly, her own face tight with anxiety. "I know. Believe me, I know."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _6:13 PM CET, Novi Grad, Sokovia_

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Night came on very suddenly, the sky streaked in blood as the setting sun caught the dust in the air. Steve's feet felt numb. He couldn't remember the last time he'd sat down. There was so much to do though, and no time to take a break.

Hours earlier, after the explosion that tore Ultron's plans to shreds, Fury had been set to take the helicarrier to a refugee camp in a nearby country. The Sokovian officials had refused, insisting they be set back down in what was left of Novi Grad. Families had been torn apart, people were frightened and lost, and the angry Sokovians demanded SHIELD's help and cursed the Avengers for their interference in the same breath.

They had been somewhat surprised when Steve Rogers arrived to stand with them, showing up in his dirty uniform, shield on his back.

"This wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for us." Steve's jaw was set, and his arms folded. "We owe it to them Fury, like it or not."

Fury hadn't liked it, but he didn't have much say in the matter - not when the captain had that look on his face.

And so Steve, shoulder to shoulder with the terrified survivors, had been the first man to set foot on the ground.

Novi Grad was an absolute mess. Most of the city had been torn up by the roots, and the rim that was left hadn't escaped unscathed either. Buildings had toppled from falling debris and the initial ground-shaking wrench. Water and electricity were out, phone lines were down, and the streets were clogged with cars and people. Children choked on the thick air as parents tied whatever cloth they could find around tiny mouths, trying to protect their lungs.

The whole scene was horribly familiar, actually. Steve had seen this before in London, in Belgium, in Normandy. He worked mechanically; clearing rubble, helping trapped civilians, carrying the dead to lie along the streets so their families could identify them. It was thankless, numbing work.

An hour into his self-imposed task, Tony arrived, wordlessly helping him heave a fallen beam out of a road. They didn't speak, working silently in tandem.

Most of the civilians avoided them, casting wary glances out of the corner of their eyes. A few swore or spit, some cried, but the most difficult were the ones who got violent, screaming as they threw things at the Avengers. They didn't cause much damage to the Iron Man suit, but after a cinder block connected with the back of Steve's head, Tony lost his patience.

"Ungrateful brats," he said, after frightening the young hoodlums away with his menacing approach. Then he faced the captain, speaking to him directly for the first time since finding out Bruce was MIA. "Look, why don't you head back to the carrier, see what the next step is?"

Steve shook his head, hair bloody where the sharp edge had cut him, coughing against the dusty air. Stark's metal gauntlet curled over his shoulder, and the mask folded back.

"I mean it, Cap," he said quietly. His voice was brusque, but not unkind. "Go get a drink or something. I can take care of stuff here for a while."

He didn't want to. He wanted to stay and keep helping, try to absolve his guilt through manual labor - but this was Stark, trying to do something for somebody else, and Steve knew how important that was. Besides, there was a chance the helicarrier might have established connections with America again.

"Five minutes," he relented at last, and went.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The inside of the helicarrier was bright, and Steve was mildly surprised at how dark it had become outside. The passageways were still full of homeless Sokovians, and they clutched at his uniform as he passed, calling out inquiries about their families, their homes, their livelihood. He had no answers - his command of the language wasn't nearly good enough, and he was emotionally stretched thin.

It was a relief to reach the command deck and close the door behind him. Maria Hill brought him a bottle of water, and he downed half of it in one swallow.

"Any chance I can get a call through to New York?" he asked hopefully. Hill shook her head. The dust had been settling somewhat, but technicians didn't anticipate being able to get a connection through until morning at least. Her eyes were full of questions that she would never ask, and he was grateful for that.

Finishing off the water, Steve turned back to the door. Then he hesitated. He knew that the homeless, helpless throng was waiting for him on the other side, and he knew he was unable to help them.

"Where's Miss Maximoff?" he asked instead.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

He found her curled into the shadow of a bulkhead, up on the upper level where seawater could flood in and out freely when the helicarrier was used as a boat. With a stifled groan, he slid down the wall and sat next to her, stretching out his legs. His knees hurt, and the back of his head still throbbed.

Vision had flown off somewhere, and hadn't returned yet. Thor didn't seem worried though, so Steve had decided to leave it all to him. Aliens and robots weren't exactly his area of expertise.

Homeless European war victims - now those he had experience with.

For a long time, they sat in silence. She was just a kid, eyes staring blankly out of a dirty face, long hair hopelessly tangled. Steve had seen that look on so many faces during the war, after New York, after DC. In fact, he was pretty sure he'd had that look on his own face after Bucky died, after his mother died.

"I'm sorry about your brother," he said at last.

Her face twisted suddenly, and she laid her head on her knees, hair falling around her. Steve knew the words were hopelessly inadequate. He'd heard them before when Bucky had gone missing; when he'd let his brother fall. Shifting, he reached out and lightly touched her shoulder. She didn't pull away, so he left his hand there, trying to ground her.

"You know," he said at last, when the silence between them felt a little less fragile, "You're welcome to stay with us for as long as you want."

She sat up straight, and he drew his hand back. "At Stark Tower?" she asked, mouth pulling into a halfhearted expression of distaste.

"At the _Avengers_ Tower," Steve corrected quietly.

Wanda surveyed him for a moment, and then lowered her eyes and clenched a hand over her mouth. She had been too young when her parents died, Steve realized. Grief for them had long since changed into anger and a desire for vengeance. This loss was new and raw, and she had no idea how to deal with it.

"I wish I could tell you that it gets easier," he told her after a minute. His voice rasped in his throat from the dust; he spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. "It won't, not right away. But you don't have to do this alone. We got your back, Wanda."

Her face crumpled. Then she cried - a low, mournful keening for her brother, her soul's companion, her friend. Steve closed his eyes for a moment and remembered a bombed-out pub, the bite of ineffective alcohol, and a bone-deep grief that would never entirely leave him.

He put his hand on her shoulder again, and they sat in the gathering darkness.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _1:20 PM EDT, Boston, Massachusetts, USA_

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Thank you," Pepper said to the woman at the hospital lunchroom. The cinnamon rolls weren't nearly as nice as the ones Natasha could make when she was in the mood, but hopefully they would make a nice treat for Peggy. The agent had been lying flat on her back for far longer than either of them had patience for, and needed something to keep her occupied while they waited for the results of the procedure.

Absorbed in her paper bag, Pepper stepped briskly off the elevator and was halfway down the hallway to her friend's room when she overheard the hushed, gossipy chatter coming from the nurse's station.

Pepper hadn't got where she was without knowing when to listen in, and to whom. She slowed, taking care not to let her steps make a sound as she approached.

"...got a ring, but I guess her husband didn't even care enough to come with her."

"At least she has a friend."

"What kind of man leaves his wife alone at a time like this?"

They were talking about Peggy. If she hadn't worried that they would throw her out, Pepper would have stalked over and shown them a few of the self-defense moves Happy had drilled into her. Instead, she put on her most politely threatening smile and advanced.

"You know her husband is a soldier?" she commented, almost conversationally and with extreme politeness. Heads turned guiltily; one of the nurses jumped and dropped a clipboard. Pepper allowed her pleasant smile to widen just a trifle. It was an expression that always left the stockholders shivering in their seats, and she knew it. "He's overseas right now, fighting to keep all of you safe."

She didn't bother to listen to their shamefaced apologies, her expensive heels clicking dangerously as she continued down the hall to Peggy's room. After all, the cinnamon rolls weren't getting any warmer.

Besides, she needed to get the number of the wing supervisor. Employees shouldn't be talking behind their patients' backs like that.

 _So_ unprofessional.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 _8:36 PM CET, Novi Grad, Sokovia_

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Steve stayed with Wanda for an endless age as she cried, quietly offering what support he could. Then, when her choked sobs had finally turned to miserable hiccups, he offered her his handkerchief. It was filthy and bloody, but she hunted for a clean spot and blew her nose.

"Want to lend me a hand?" he offered, once she handed the square of fabric back. "Sometimes it helps."

She wiped at her eyes with both wrists, leaving muddy streaks on her face, and nodded without hesitation.

There were blankets in the helicarrier lockers. Steve doubted Fury would tell him the combinations if asked, so he simply started at one end of the row, systematically breaking each door open. Wanda worked toward him from the other end.

The girl was made of strong stuff, Steve mused, as he watched her wrench another locker open with a flash of her eyes. She just needed some stability, some support. Maybe she would allow them to give that to her.

It was handy having a native speaker with him. Together, he and Wanda distributed blankets, trying to get families settled in any free corner of space they could find. Most of them wouldn't be leaving the helicarrier tonight. Clint eventually joined them, hobbling badly, face tight and grim and grateful as he nodded briefly to the Maximoff girl.

After all, it was because of her brother's sacrifice that the ice-cold saline stasis tank in the medical wing held Pietro's bullet-riddled body and not Clint's.

A mechanical clanking echoed down the hallway, and Steve straightened guiltily. He'd meant to go right back and help Stark, but then Wanda had needed a friend, and then they'd been sidetracked.

"Sorry," he started, but Tony waved off the apology, detaching the faceplate into his hand.

"Not a big deal. Thunder Boy and his new buddy turned up right after you left. We're gonna take off for the night anyway." He stepped closer, metal boots echoing dully. People pulled away, spitting on the suit, glaring hatefully, and Steve felt a sudden surge of annoyance at them. Despite having made Ultron in the first place, the man wasn't completely responsible for all of this.

"Oh, before I forget." Tony held out the faceplate of his suit and lowered his voice so those around them wouldn't hear. "Will you tell your wife I am not a cell phone service? Sheesh, the nerve of some people."

Steve stared at the faceplate, and his throat felt suddenly too small. "I - my wife? Tony, the dust is still too thick to call out."

Tony grinned suddenly, teeth gleaming white in the dirt-darkened face. "You mean _SHIELD_ can't call out. My tech is better - I've had reception for the past half hour. Scratchy, and audio only, but better than nothing. Here," he flapped the faceplate impatiently, "my arm is getting tired."

Blindly, Steve passed his armful of blankets to someone - probably Clint. His hand wasn't quite steady as he reached for the piece of metal, and Tony threw him a quick, surprised glance. If it weren't for the strain still hovering between them over Bruce's disappearance, the billionaire probably would have asked what was wrong. As it was, he would almost certainly try to listen in.

Steve couldn't take the call here. Not if - not if the worst had happened.

"Thanks," he managed, and then pushed through the nearest door, turning corners at random, heading away from the noise and crowd until by some miracle he found an empty stairwell. At last, uncertainly, he lifted the plate to cover his face. Stark's head was a different shape from his own - it didn't fit comfortably. A viewscreen bloomed before his eyes, a picture of Pepper hovering in one corner; he guessed the call was from her phone.

"Rogers." His voice was more abrupt than he'd meant. There was a very long pause, and he was just beginning to think the connection had failed when he heard Peggy's voice. It was thin and crackly, but definitely hers.

"Steve?"

The air left his lungs with a rush. "Yeah." Why was he so bad at talking on the phone? "Did - are you - how'd it go?"

Another moment of silence. All the air seemed sucked out of the room. Steve's heart seized up, cramping in his chest.

Then Peggy caught her breath, a shuddering little sound. "Darling," she whispered. Her tone was unreadable over the bad connection. "It's all right."

He still couldn't breathe. "All right?" he faltered, mind spinning too fast to manage rational thought. What did 'all right' mean exactly?

"The doctor just came through." It was unmistakable now - her voice fairly throbbed with a hope and gladness he hadn't heard since the first bad news blindsided them. "They believe the operation was successful. He needs to heal, but - Steve - he has a chance."

Steve didn't realize he'd fallen to his knees until he felt the floor under his fingertips. His other hand clamped the mask hard against his face, bruising the bridge of his nose. He tried to say something, to let her know how much he loved her, how glad he was, how relieved, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a sort of sobbing half-laugh.

He knew how to take grief with a stiff upper lip - that was an old story to him. Joy, however, was another matter altogether.

On the other end of the line, Peggy blinked wet eyes hard, smiling giddily at her husband's wordless, exhausted relief, whispering tenderly to him as he fell apart on the other side of the world. Pepper, her own heart warm from the few words she'd exchanged with her boyfriend earlier, quietly got to her feet and left the room, giving them some privacy.

They didn't need an outsider listening in.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Hi. :) Thank you for all your kind reviews, and for your patience waiting for me to get my act together. I hope I didn't break your hearts too much with Pietro - honestly, half of what took so long was me trying to figure out how to save him and what I would do with him if I did. But this is the way I wrote it so long ago, and so this is the way it went. RIP, you quirky Sokovian rascal - I loved writing you more than I'd expected.**

 **Guest replies (I'll get around to the rest of you at some point, truly! For now, just know that I Appreciate You and that You're The Best Readers Ever!):**

 **Arwen55: I love Steve too! Steve appreciation club, unite! As for the Infinity War - yeah, I feel the same way. Next year feels forever away, and I'm so apprehensive about it already… anyway, thanks for your review!**

 **Kirsten: You. Are. Amazing. You had me smiling for three days straight as I got all your lovely reviews, one after the other! I tried a couple times to jump in and edit a chapter to leave you a thank-you note, but I don't know if you saw it. I don't know if you'll see this either, but I wanted to let you know that I'm so incredibly grateful, and your kind words made for one of the most memorable experiences I've had on this site. Thank you!**

 **ChildofGod: Hey, being late is what the Steggy fandom is all about, so you're not alone. Thanks so much for your lovely review! I'm glad you feel like Tony was in-character. Having Bruce leave had to be hard on him, and I felt like we needed to see some of that reaction. (Also, Pepper and Peggy are probably the best and scariest fririendship ever. Just saying.) Thanks again!**


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter Twenty-nine**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

"Wait, why are we stopping? Where is this, anyway? You kidnapping us all again, Barton?" Tony stared incredulously out of the window as Clint began initiating landing procedures.

The Avengers were on their way home, at long last. It had taken almost two days for relief services to arrive at Sokovia. The Red Cross came, along with other private charity organizations and several governments sent representatives. With temporary refugee camps set up and the helicarrier emptied, Fury had made the call to withdraw and had cleared them to take off for New York. Clint had commandeered one of the helicarrier's quinjets for the purpose, since they'd lost their own.

But this was definitely not New York.

"Boston," Steve clarified, coming up behind the billionaire. He was still in his combat uniform, but had stripped off the top half, tugging on a t-shirt in an effort to look less conspicuous. All their extra equipment had gone down on the missing quinjet with Bruce, including the change of civilian clothing everyone tried to keep on hand. This was the best he could do. "You're dropping me off. I can take the train to New York afterwards."

"We can wait," Clint cut in before Tony could get a word out. "No problem."

The billionaire shot Barton a dirty look as Steve took off across the pavement. They appeared to have landed on a secondary helicopter pad outside some kind of hospital. "Speak for yourself, bud," he groused. "I want to get back to my tower and have a nice long - wait, is that Pepper? What is Pepper doing in Boston? Why is she talking to Cap?"

Clint grinned and put his heels up on the control panel - a habit he'd picked up from Natasha. He loved confusing Tony Stark.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Peggy checked her wristwatch and then zipped the last of her things into the little day bag she'd brought with her to the hospital. It had been a longer stay than either she or Pepper had expected. After the initial procedure, and the hopeful prognosis, the doctors had invited her to stay on-site for the next few days, so they could follow up.

"It's looking good," they kept assuring her, after every scan and sonogram. Her son's punctured heart was healing up unusually quickly from the procedure. The needle had successfully opened the closed valve, so the second half of his heart had sufficient blood flow for the first time since his conception. The worry lines melted from around Doctor Winters' eyes, and she looked happier and happier each time they met.

Peggy felt that she herself should have been happier than she was. She was thrilled, she was giddy with relief, she was glad, but she had struggled so much with her feelings of guilt and grief that now she was unable to entirely shake them off. She wished with all her heart that her husband could have been with her. Together, she thought, they could finally start feeling the joy that most expectant parents were normally expected to feel. For now, she felt stuck in an odd sort of limbo.

They weren't out of the woods yet - even with all the tests and imaging they wouldn't know for absolute certain until after their baby boy was born - but this way he had a chance. Now it merely remained to be seen to what extent the increased blood flow would help speed the development of the stunted half of his heart. At the very least, he should be able to survive his birth and be a candidate for further surgery; something that had been impossible before.

But now - well, now it was time to go home and wait for their next checkup.

Picking up her bag, Peggy stepped briskly out of her room and down the hall. It was early in the morning, only a few minutes before shift change, so the halls were nearly empty. It was the perfect time to make her exit without being observed.

She was halfway to the elevators when the stairway door slammed open, and Steve - _Steve_ \- burst through, tall and blond and looking in all directions at once.

Her bag dropped unnoticed to the floor, sliding from her limp fingers, and he turned at the sound and saw her. His face brightened, and then he was full-out sprinting down the hall towards her, combat boots squeaking against the sterile vinyl flooring.

Peggy's own feet were moving, propelling her forwards - and then they came together in a rush and she found her home in his arms, caught infinitely close, swept entirely off the ground with the strength of his embrace. Something tight in her chest burst with hot relief; she choked out his name.

He didn't say a word, just bent his head and kissed her.

Steve Rogers had never kissed her this way in public, not even on their wedding day. Kisses like these were reserved for the privacy behind the closed door of their room - and so it was that kiss and the tender, sweeping, desperate passion of it that told her just how close she had come to never seeing him again.

Her lashes were wet when they finally broke apart. He was breathing hard as he set her carefully on her feet again, eyes devouring her from head to toe in one quick, comprehensive glance. Then the corner of his mouth drew up a little; his hands at her waist tugged her closer.

"Hi."

She laughed despite herself, laughed shakily around the lump in her throat that she refused to acknowledge. Then she leaned into him again, tangling both hands into the sides of his shirt. He breathed out, a long sigh that seemed to come from his bones.

"And you're okay?" he asked, as though they hadn't spent a precious twenty minutes the other day over Tony's faceplate connection confirming that fact. They hadn't been able to speak again since then, as the Iron Man suit had been kept so busy with the rescue efforts and communications satellites were still jammed with calls.

Peggy nodded, turned her head so she could see his face better. "I am," she assured him. "We both are." His heartbeat hammered a counterpoint to hers; she never wanted to let him go again. "Incidentally, your son seems to be healing up faster than expected, which - given he's yours - I suppose shouldn't be all that surprising."

He understood what she wasn't saying. Quick, startled realization flashed through his eyes. Project Rebirth had altered his genetic code - they knew that - but what they hadn't known was to what extent those changes would be hereditary.

There was so much to say, and they both realized at the same time that this was not the place to say it in.

"So," Steve threw a stealthy look around - at least, as stealthily as he could, given his height and breadth and recognizable features. He didn't even have his sunglasses, the loveable idiot. "What are you doing with your bag in a hallway?"

He knew her far too well. "Jailbreak," she told him lightly. "Pepper went to call a ride to the airport, although I'm afraid you've rather mucked up my attempt at going unnoticed."

Sure enough, behind her Peggy could catch the tap of shoes - flat-soled and sensible - coming down the hallway towards them.

"Mmm," Steve murmured into her ear. "Change of plans. I ran into Pepper on the way up. We've got something better than a taxi."

He would have continued, but time ran out then. "Ms. Carter," Dr. Finlayson started to say as she rounded the corner by the empty nurse's station - and then she stopped short, noticing him for the first time.

Steve looked up, saw the woman's name tag, and straightened. He knew who she was, knew who his wife had been working with throughout this ordeal. Keeping one hand on Peggy's waist, he stepped forward and shook the startled doctor's hand warmly.

"Doctor," he greeted her with great earnestness. "I can't thank you enough."

Dr. Finlayson blinked up at the man shaking her hand. It was quite clear to her, all of a sudden, exactly who Elizabeth Carter's elusive husband was - exactly why the famous Pepper Potts had accompanied her patient and required every doctor, nurse, and staff member on the floor to sign an NDA - exactly why the amniocentesis tests had such faintly unusual readings.

She had assumed there was metahuman DNA involved; a not unusual complication these days.

But she'd _never_ imagined her patient's husband was Captain America.

When the haze of shock eventually cleared, the doctor found herself showing the test results and scans to a man who was completely focused on what she was saying, entirely respectful of her rank as a doctor, and desperately apologetic that he hadn't been there earlier. And - if the grasp he maintained on his wife's hand was any indication - he was deeply in love with the woman she had known as Elizabeth Carter.

When they departed, Dr. Finlayson stared at the closed doors of the elevator for almost a full minute. Then she looked down at the prescription pad in her hand, which held the inscription: _With gratitude - S. Rogers._

Oh, goodness. Had she actually asked for his autograph?

With a half-breathless laugh, she slipped her pad into her pocket and turned back down the hall to check on her other patients. She had a feeling their next checkup would be a very interesting one indeed.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

Outside on the hospital's helicopter landing pad, Pepper Potts was expertly managing the Avengers' unexpected landing with a confused hospital representative. "Stark Industries is pairing with MedEvac," she assured the man, who kept looking back and forth between the quinjet and the hospital with a slightly desperate look on his face. "Experimental equipment," she continued calmly. "We're here to do a test run."

"I didn't get any notification," the man started, waving a handful of paper reports before quailing under a patented Potts eyebrow.

"Perhaps there was a miscommunication?" Pepper cut in smoothly, and she said it in such a way that left little doubt in the mind of her hearer that of _course_ there had been a miscommunication, and it was probably their own fault too.

Steve and Peggy appeared across the pavement then, heading quickly for the quinjet's lowering ramp, and Pepper finally deigned to let the man off the hook. She smiled brightly back at the representative of the hospital as she turned on one dangerously pointed heel. "I'll make sure to highly rate your hospital's cooperation," she called to him, and then whisked into the quinjet before he had time to say a word in reply.

Steve and Peggy were right behind the CEO, keeping their faces turned down and away from the security cameras that were surely recording the whole thing. The captain wore a baseball cap and sunglasses that Peggy had conjured up out of her day bag for him, and he ushered his wife up the ramp as though she were made of glass, despite her half-irritated, half-laughing protests.

"Oh, honestly," Peggy muttered under her breath, but didn't press too hard. Steve had been deeply hurt by his own inability to be by her side earlier, so if helping her everywhere gave him any closure, then she supposed she could stand it for a little longer.

The clatter Tony's phone made as it hit the floor made everybody suddenly look up. He was staring wide-eyed at Peggy's midsection, and she realized too late that the rush of pressurized air as she entered the quinjet had blown her sweater back and flattened her loose dress against her body, outlining her rounded stomach. Beside her, Steve beamed proudly.

Tony blinked, and then opened his mouth. "You're pregnant."

Peggy tilted her head just a little bit higher, trying to hide her smile at his reaction. "Well, that does tend to happen sometimes," she pointed out.

"She's pregnant," Tony announced to the quinjet at large, as if nobody else had noticed. "When did this happen? Am I the last to know? Don't tell me I'm the last to know."

Clint grinned toothily from the cockpit. "I guessed," he called back, much to Tony's dismay. Thor looked gratifyingly astonished and delighted, while Wanda's jaw dropped as she finally put together all the pieces she'd seen in Steve's head back in Africa.

Natasha simply shrugged, way too smugly. "She stopped sparring with me. It was obvious."

" _Et tu_ , Romanoff?" Tony sniped back. "And just so everybody knows, I called dibs on godfather, like, years ago."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The telephone was ringing - a true, proper ringtone, not the jumble of discordant sounds that Tony's phone made, and which he dubbed 'music.' The habits of a lifetime were hard to break, so Peggy reached over the couch armrest and groped until her fingers hit the smooth case.

"Rogers," she answered briefly. Nobody had this number but SHIELD and the other Avengers, so an unknown voice coming over the line was a definite surprise.

" _Hi, this is Rebecca Miller with the New York Times; I'm calling for Captain America. Is he there? What statement do you have regarding the recent events in Eastern Europe?"_

Taken aback, Peggy stared at the phone in consternation and then annoyance. She'd only just got her husband back - there was no way on God's green earth that she was going to tell some news harpy over the phone that Captain America currently happened to be wrapped around her on their little couch, head resting comfortably over her heart as she ran her fingers through his freshly-washed hair.

"Is it for me?" Steve looked up at her unexpected silence. Poor man - he looked so tired, even after a shower and a square meal. Peggy pulled his head back down.

"Sorry, who?" she inquired coolly into the telephone.

" _Captain America."_ The woman sounded a little less certain. " _I was given to understand this was his number?"_

This was Peggy's element. "Do I sound like Captain America?" she demanded hotly. Steve looked up again, and she winked wickedly as she continued. "I'm British, for heaven's sake - get your nationalities straight."

The reporter stuttered on the other end of the line, loud enough that Steve could apparently pick up on it. His chuckles vibrated through her body as he tried to stifle them, and she rapped him on the head to keep him silent until she could hang up.

"Have I told you lately how much I love you?" he asked after she ended the call and dropped the phone back on the end table. Peggy shook her head, biting her lip in the way she knew distracted him.

"Not lately, Captain."

He rose onto his elbows, moving carefully as he drew himself up next to her, ever mindful of her rounded abdomen against his side.

"Well, we can't have that," he whispered against her smile, and she held her breath, losing herself in his blue eyes, anticipating his kiss.

That was, of course, when the telephone chose to ring again.

Steve groaned and dropped his face into the cushion by her head, voice muffled by the upholstery. "Used to be you could just yank the cord outta the wall."

The phone had slid away from where she'd dropped it earlier. Peggy growled some unladylike things as she felt around for it, unwilling to sit up and actually look. "Language," Steve cautioned mildly, and received a playful tap on the shoulder for his trouble that set him chuckling again.

The call turned out to be from another news service. Peggy didn't even answer it, checking the number first before powering down the phone mid-ring.

"FRIDAY?" she asked the ceiling, and a minute later the new voice came on.

"Yes, miss?"

"If any of the Avengers try to call, let us know, will you?"

"Yes, miss." This new system wasn't as responsive or as personable as JARVIS had been, but perhaps that was just Peggy's way of thinking. After all, she had known the real Jarvis quite well, and the program had always seemed to have a soft spot for her.

Steve's hand had slipped back down to spread over her stomach again. He hadn't been able to stop touching her ever since they'd found each other at the hospital, and she had an idea it came from some need for reassurance. His thumb swept across a small ridge through the thin fabric of her shirt, and he paused. "Does this hurt?"

Peggy shook her head. It was the place where a few stitches closed the shallow incision in her skin made to insert the specialized needle that had punctured their baby's heart. "No," she assured him, and they fell back into silence, just holding one another close.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked him quietly after a while, and he sighed.

"Not really," he answered. "I just - I shouldn't have taken Banner. I knew he was low, but he said he wanted to come, and I thought he'd like to help find Nat."

Peggy shifted until she could look into her husband's face. "You can't blame yourself for his choice," she reminded him, and he closed his eyes, nodding wearily. It had been the same refrain his whole life - Bucky's choice, Banner's choice - but he could never quite get over the feeling of responsibility. He was their captain.

"I know it's horribly selfish of me," she continued, sweeping his hair back from his forehead. "But I'm so relieved it wasn't you again. I watched Sokovia start flying on the telly, and I thought..." her voice wobbled rather unexpectedly, and she pursed her mouth, trying to steady it. She'd thought she was going to be a widow.

He opened his eyes at that, guilt-stricken. "Peggy - I'm so sorry."

"It's all right," she soothed, smiling at his consternation and firmly swallowing the lump that had come into her throat at the memory of that awful fear. "I knew what I was getting into when I married you. It's just - no more doomed flying things, all right?"

"I'll do my best, Mrs. Rogers," he promised, and buried his head a little more deeply into her shoulder. His hand spread idly against her stomach, paused for a moment, then moved and paused again, flattening - searching, Peggy realized, for a repeat of the fluttering kick he'd felt only once before on the eve of battle.

"I think he's sleeping," Peggy offered, feeling a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. "If I feel him start kicking again, you'll be the first to know."

Her husband's head moved in a nod against her shoulder, though she noticed he didn't shift his hand for another moment. She felt, rather than saw, a wondering, dreamy smile spread across his face. For the moment, the careworn captain had retired, and the man she held in her arms was very much the boy from Brooklyn.

"You know, betcha he'll be a baseball player."

A wave of emotion crashed over her. They hadn't had this kind of idle, hopeful conversation since discovering their son's diagnosis, and she felt rather out of practice. Peggy swallowed hard to ensure her voice would be steady. "And I imagine he'll look just like his father."

Steve shook his head. When he looked up at her, it was with such love in his face that her battered, tired heart could scarcely bear it. "Nope - I hope he looks exactly like you."

Tentative joy began to unfurl in her soul - a reborn hope and anticipation for the tiny life within her. Her heart was too full to answer him, so instead Peggy leaned down to drop a kiss on the golden head at her shoulder. Then she hugged him closer, laid her cheek against his hair, and knew herself to be beloved.

The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece filled the peaceful silence of the room. It set a tempo for the gentle back-and-forth movement of Steve's hand across her stomach, for the way her fingers drifted soothingly through his hair. Little by little, she felt the tension seep out of his broad shoulders, the massive muscles of his back begin to unclench. His hand came to a slow stop against her side, fingers relaxing…

No. This mustn't happen here.

"Steve," she urged, trying to rouse him. She would have sat up, only she was half-trapped under his weight, so she jostled him instead. "You can't fall asleep here. Let's go to bed."

He made a sleepy, half-conscious sound in the back of his throat, but didn't otherwise respond.

Right. Time to pull out the big guns then. "Darling, you wouldn't condemn your pregnant wife to spend the night on the couch, would you?"

A pause - and then he sucked in a deep breath through his nose. "Nnnnghh," he groaned, and slowly started to pull himself upright. Clumsy as he always was when very tired, he promptly slid off the edge of the couch and landed hard on the floor with a thump that jarred him into some sort of wakefulness. "Ow." He blinked, blearily, unhurt but vaguely startled. "Sorry."

Sometimes she was so desperately fond of him that she could hardly bear it.

It took some doing to get him to their room. Steve was very nearly drunk with exhaustion, walking first into the doorframe and then into the wall. He had always been like this - straining himself to the limit for as long as a mission took, only to crash afterwards once the danger and the adrenaline had passed. He'd scarcely slept since the beginning of this whole Ultron fiasco, and now it was catching up to him all at once.

Peggy left him fumbling with his buttons while she got into her nightgown and then hurried on to the bathroom to dig through the cabinet. He was in his pajamas and looking marginally more awake when she returned, a tube of arnica in hand. It was an old-fashioned remedy, even for them, but it worked.

"Here," she commanded, plucking at the hem of the shirt he'd just pulled on. "Let me see those bruises."

Steve shook his head. "I'll be fine - they'll heal," he assured her.

"And they'll heal faster with this on them," Peggy retorted just as promptly. "Shirt off, please."

He sat on the edge of the bed and did as he was told, pulling up the loose legs of his pajama pants to get the bruises on his knees while she sat cross-legged on the mattress behind him and started rubbing the gel into the deep contusions on his back where he'd been thrown into something. Serum or no serum, he hadn't come away from this string of confrontations spanning half the globe without a painful patchwork across his skin.

Eventually she worked her way up to his hair, and lightly touched the lump at the back of his head. Steve flinched, hard. He'd done the same earlier in the day, when she'd found it for the first time, and she'd carefully avoided touching it after that.

"What did this?" she inquired. Usually her husband's helmet kept his head more or less protected.

Steve ducked away from her touch, shoulders tensing abruptly as he shrugged. "Brick," he answered shortly. His sleepiness had seemingly fled.

Undeterred, Peggy reached to touch it again, feeling it gently even as he flinched once more under her hand. "Who threw it?" she asked after a moment - because Steve Rogers could and had taken half a building to the back without wincing, and this was such a slight bruise in comparison. Besides, guilt and grief were heavy in his voice.

For a long moment, Steve didn't answer, meditatively rubbing gel into a long blackish-purple stripe up his leg. "A kid," he answered at last, very quietly. "Crying, scared. Angry at the _fašista_ who'd destroyed his home."

Sudden angry tears stung at Peggy's eyes, but she blinked them back and swallowed the hot anger swelling in her throat. Then she leaned forward, laying her face against Steve's broad back, slipping her arms around his waist, disregarding the drying arnica that smeared onto her nightgown. "Oh, Steve."

He bowed his head and folded a hand over hers - and for a very long time they just sat together, holding each other.

"Everybody's so young these days," Steve said at last, his voice rumbling through his back and against Peggy's cheek. She could feel his pain as acutely as if it were her own. "Has it all been forgotten, or have I really become...?"

His voice broke off short. Peggy pressed her cheek more closely against her husband's skin, and then drew back just enough to press a fierce kiss between his shoulderblades. It broke her heart that people would think her captain on a par with Mussolini, with Hitler; the screaming tyrants who had slain millions and sent countless more marching to their deaths, who had sent half of Europe up in flames.

"They've forgotten," she assured him firmly. "You could never be like those monsters. They can't imagine - they never knew what it was like."

Steve's fingers laced between hers, his palm warm along the back of her hand. "'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,'" he whispered heavily.

Peggy closed her eyes and held him as tightly as she knew how. She would always love this man, his heart, his indomitable spirit, his faith, his genuine care for humanity.

"They are," she whispered at last, over the catch in her throat. "And that's why there are people like us. We will always remember - and because we remember, we do our best to keep the rest of them safe."

She held him for a very long time. Then, when they finally drew apart, she rubbed the gel into the roots of his hair around the painful lump with the tenderest of care. She couldn't take away the insult, or the pain it had brought him - but she could help him heal from the physical reminder, at the very least.

In their dimly-lit room, the process of massaging the medicinal gel into the captain's bruises had the side-effect of being an intimate and soothing way of winding down. By the time he finally rolled into bed, Steve was practically asleep again, weary behind expression. Peggy snapped off the bedside lamp and then got in beside him, cuddling close and smiling as she felt his sigh of satisfaction. He reached down to gently curl his hand around her rounded stomach. "'Night, kiddo," he slurred. Then he kissed her clumsily through his exhaustion. "Love ya, Peg."

He dropped off almost immediately after that, body and mind both desperately in need of the sleep he had put off for so long. Now that the mission was over, the team returned to base, and his wife was at his side, he could rest at last.

Peggy snuggled closer to her sleeping husband in the dark and laid one hand on his chest so she could feel the slow, regular rise and fall of his breathing. He was so infinitely precious to her, dearer even than her own life.

"Good night, my darling," she whispered, and let her own eyelids drop shut.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **I've always been fascinated by the deleted movie scene where Steve sees graffiti in Sokovia calling him a fascist. As somebody who fought directly against the most notable fascist powers in history, that had to be incredibly hurtful to him, even though it doesn't stop him from trying to save Sokovia anyway. I wanted to explore that a little. And also give you a full chapter of some Steve/Peggy-ness, since it's been far too long since they've been in the same space. :)**

 **The line Steve quotes about repeating the past is from** _**The Life of Reason**_ **by Santayana, published in 1905.**

 **The word** _**fašista**_ **means "fascist" in Slovak (and presumably Sokovian, since it's in the deleted scene). Thanks to my good friend denyz for the Slovak check!**

 **I'm home sick today, so any reviews will bring some added sunshine to my convalescence! (Not trying to guilt you into reviewing - I'm actually feeling pretty good; I just love hearing from you all so I figure it's worth a try.) :)**

* * *

 **Kirsten: Thanks ever so much for your kind review! It thoroughly made my day, and I am absolutely delighted that the last chapter was as moving as you described. I mean, I try to aim for it, but it's always exciting when it actually comes across as planned. :) I hope you have a great weekend! Thanks again for your kindness!**


End file.
